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OSM ANIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
Call No. S ~?l/ L- 74 O Accession No.
Author LJipS^ T- ..
This book should be returned on or before the date last marked below .ft
THE ORIGIN
OF TH I NGS
By the Same Author
THE SAVAGE HITS BACK
TENTS IN THE WILDERNESS
THE ORIGIN
OF THINGS
A Cultural History of Man
BY
JULIUS E. LIPS
Illustrations by EVA LIPS
GEORGE G. HARRAP & CO. LTD
LONDON SYDNEY TORONTO BOMBAY
First published KM 9
bv GEORGE G. HARRAP & Co. LTD
18-! High Holboin, London, W C i
Copyright. All rights reserved
Dewey Decimal classification: 571
Made in Great Britain. Printed by The Riverside Press, Edinburgh
Preface
THE IMPETUS to write this book was perhaps unique. It seems
to me that the social life of an anthropologist is more intimately
interwoven with his profession than that of most other scientists.
How often at dinner^ and cocktail parties some one has asked
me: "You are an anthropologist? Now tell me everything about
anthropology ! "
Such a general wish is, naturally, not easy to satisfy, but upon
rising from the table the inquirer would at least know that plates
and forks, chairs and cosmetics, rings and bracelets, liquors and
wines, are no inventions of a recent era, but that they go back to
the dawn of time.
But more often the questions have not been of such a vague
nature. Not only women but men have wished to know whether
hair-styles, lipstick, and the many beauty tricks applied by our
modern women are the inventions of the refinements and sophisti-
cation of recent times. People have been either disappointed or
amused and satisfied to learn that these things are in fact thousands
of years old and that even more cunning gadgets and preparations
were used by so-called * savages.'
When conversation, inspired by the events of the day, has turned
to more serious matters, like social security and, especially, the
ambiguous 'democracy,' these have been shown to be anything but
modern achievements to be, in fact, often rather inadequate
imitations of similar systems established by humanity millenniums
ago. Experts in modern communication, such as the newspaper
and the radio, have been interested to hear that mankind has always
found skilful means of notifying the public of important news events
efficiently and speedily.
Indeed, I have been surprised at the lively interest shown in such
revelations. This interest has been even more pronounced among
my fellow-anthropologists and my teacher friends. Their encourage-
ment to tell to the general public the origin of our modern tools,
habits, traditions, and beliefs added considerably to the inspiration
I began to feel, and many talks with students and younger folks
opened my eyes to their specific interests. Naturally, I tried to find
out what aspects of human culture are most directly connected with
the problems of our time, and the fifteen chapters of this book are
the result of my private poll on the special interests and curiosities
of men and women in many walks of life.
6 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
But all this encouragement in itself would not have induced me
to write this book if I had not felt strongly that it is the task of an
anthropologist, especially in our days, to work in his field towards a
closer understanding among peoples and cultures. The heritage
we took over from primitive man is common to all races and nations.
The common ground of all peoples revealed by the facts of anthro-
pology should in the end contribute more towards the realization of
One World. The early inventors and benefactors of human culture
cannot be distinguished by colour of skin, nationality, or religion
they remain anonymous. But most of them have contributed more
to human happiness than many a modern statesman.
The Second World War has brought us into contact with almost
all peoples on earth, and a new Age of Discovery has aroused new
interest in foreign peoples and foreign cultures. The discoveries
in nuclear physics, on the other hand, have stressed anew the line of
evolution and, perhaps, suggested the possibility of a destruction of
all human civilization. This book has been written as a contribution
towards the understanding of the development of human culture, and
in an effort to promote mutual co-operation between peoples and
cultures and, last but not least, in the hope that it may contribute
to the realization of the One World for which we strive.
JULIUS E. LIPS
Contents
CHAPTER
I. OF HOME AND HEARTH AND POTS AND PANS 19
II. ACCESSORIES OF ALLURE 49
III. THE FIRST ROBOT 74
IV. THIS FRIENDLY EARTH 88
V. INVENTION AND THE EARLY TRADES in
VI. HAVING A GOOD TIME 150
VII. ON THE ROADS OF LAND AND WATER 174
VIII. WALL STREET IN THE JUNGLE 195
IX. FROM TOM-TOM TO NEWSPAPER 216
X. EDUCATION WITHOUT BOOKS 239
XI. THE SHOW BEGINS 262
XII. LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 287
XIII. MAGIC AND THE POWERS OF THE UNKNOWN 312
XIV. EACH THING HAS ITS STORY 337
XV. JOURNEY'S END 363
BIBLIOGRAPHY 383
INDEX 415
Illustrations
CHAPTER ONE
PAGE
TASMANIAN WINDBREAK 21
WINDBREAK: Andaman Islands 22
'BEEHIVE' or ROUND HUT 22
QUADRANGULAR HOUSE: Kwakiutl Indians 23
TEEPEE: Plains Indians 24
PRINCIPAL TYPES OF TENTS 25
STORAGE HOUSES FOR ACORNS: Miwok Indians, California 27
CLAY PIousEs: Musgu, Cameroons, West Africa 28
TUKUL (DWELLING): Upper Nile 29
THATCHED HOUSE: Batak, Sumatra 29
HOUSE-FRONT PAINTING OF A BEAR: Tsimshian Indians 30
HOPI CLIFF DWELLING: The ancient Town of Walpi 31
BANDA DWELLING: French Equatorial Africa 32
CARVED HOUSE POST: Maori, New Zealand 33
METHODS OF KINDLING THE FIRE 35
TINDER Box, FASHIONED FROM ARMADILLO TAIL : Tapiete and Toba
Indians 36
HEAD-REST OF WOOD: Geelvink Bay, New Guinea 36
WOODEN HEAD-REST: Santa Cruz Islands 37
HEAD-REST: Kafirs, South Africa 38
HEAD-REST: Mamberamo, New Guinea 38
BENCH OF CEDARWOOD: Guarani Indians, East Paraguay 39
AFRICAN CHIEFTAIN'S STOOL: Cameroons 39
WOODEN BOWL: Santa Cruz Islands 40
OIL-LAMPS 42
WATER- CONTAINER: Santa Cruz Islands 42
DRINKING CUP, FOLDED FROM BIRCH BARK: Montagnais-Naskapi
Indians 42
COOKING POT FROM THE NICOBAR ISLANDS 43
FIRE FAN: Pangwe, West Africa 44
PANGWE LADLES : West Africa 45
IVORY FLUTES, IMITATING EUROPEAN KEYS: Belgian Congo 47
ONE-PIECE IMITATION OF A WHITE MAN'S MENDED LADLE : Congo 47
REVOLUTION OF THE TOOLS": Valle de Chicama, Peru 48
CHAPTER TWO
FAVOURED WIFE OF CONGO RULER 49
WORK STOOL FOR COCONUT SCRAPING: Marken Islands 51
PALETTE FOR PREPARATION OF GREASE PAINT: West Africa 53
9 1*
10 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
PAGE
PREHISTORIC ALLURE 56
Palaeolithic Figure from the Grottoes of Lespugue, Haute
Garonne, France
Dancing Women : Rock Painting from Cogul, Spain
The "Venus of Willendorf": Ice-age Figure of Carved
Limestone
TATTOOED CHOROTI GIRL: Gran Chaco 57
SCAR-TATTOO : Yao, East Africa 57
FACIAL PAINTING: Thompson Indians 57
WEST AFRICAN HAIR-STYLE AND TATTOO 58
WEST AFRICAN 'HELMET' COIFFURE 61
CAMEROONS COIFFURE 62
HAIR-STYLE OF MARRIED ZULU WOMEN 63
WEST AFRICAN COMBS 64
POLYNESIAN COMB: Samoa 64
MAN'S CONICAL CAP, 'DIBA': Kabiri, Papua, New Guinea 65
SHELL ORNAMENT WITH ENGRAVINGS INFILLED WITH RED OCHRE:
Wyndham, North-west Australia 68
CHEST ORNAMENT FOR MEN : New Ireland 68
PREHISTORIC NECKLACE OF SNAIL-SHELLS: From the Cave Cro-
Magnon 70
STONE AGE NECKLACE OF ENGRAVED PEBBLES 70
ANCIENT NOSE ORNAMENT (Gold): Chirnu, Peru 71
WOMAN'S COSTUME: North-eastern Tribes, Lake Leopold II,
Belgian Congo 72
CHAPTER THREE
PITFALL FOR ELEPHANTS: Hottentots 74
GIRAFFE PITFALL: Kafirs, South Africa 77
GRAVITY TRAP FOR BEARS, WOLVES, AND OTTERS : Tahltan Indians,
North America 78
SNARE TRAP : Labrador Indians 79
SPIKED-WHEEL TRAP : Maka, Cameroons, West Africa 80
SPRINGING-POLE TRAP FOR MARMOTS: Eskimo 80
SPRINGING-POLE TRAP WITH FISH-POT: Bangongo, West Africa 81
RELEASE MECHANISMS OF SPRINGING-POLE TRAPS 82
ONE-PIECE SPRINGING-POLE TRAP FOR RATS : Jaunde, West Africa 82
TORSION TRAP FOR WOLVES AND FOXES: Eskimo, Norton Sound 82
GRAVITY TRAPS : Ice-age Drawings 85
GRAVITY TRAPS : In use by Primitive Peoples of To-day 85
MURALS FROM AN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN GRAVE, DEPICTING GAZELLES
CAUGHT IN WHEEL TRAP : Hieraconpolis, Egypt 86
ICE-AGE DRAWINGS OF GRAVITY TRAPS ON BUFFALO : Cave Font-de-
Gaume 86
TRAP CHARM: North Borneo 87
ILLUSTRATIONS 1 1
CHAPTER FOUR
PAGE
INDIAN HUNTERS ON SNOW-SHOES 88
CHIPPEWA WOMEN 90
IROQUOIS INDIANS 90
AUSTRALIAN HUNTER 91
HUNTER IN OSTRICH MASK, APPROACHING OSTRICHES: Bushman
Drawing 92
DIGGING STICKS : Gran Chaco and British Columbia 93
AUSTRALIAN NARDOO PLANT 98
THE BUNYA-BUNYA FRUIT OF THE AUSTRALIAN HARVESTERS 98
CALIFORNIAN INDIAN WOMEN TRANSPORTING WATER AND GRASS
SEED 98
FIELD-HOE WITH IRON BLADE: Cameroons 101
HOE WITH STONE BLADE: New Guinea 101
NEOLITHIC HOES 102
Found at Sigerslev, Denmark
Cylindrical Hoe
HOEING THE FIELD: Africa 103
A STORE-HOUSE ON HORO-WHENUA LAKE: New Zealand 104
STORAGE CONTAINERS: Ovambo, Africa 105
PRIMITIVE PLOUGH 109
WOODEN PLOUGH: Kabyles 109
MAN-DRAWN PLOUGH: Ancient Egypt (El Kah) no
CHAPTER FIVE
NAVAHO WOMAN WEAVING RUG in
'LiLLiL* CLUB: Western South Wales, Australia 115
WOODEN FOOD-BOWL: Island Truk (Carolines) 115
WOODEN TROUGH FOR CRUSHING CASSAVA LEAVES 115
HEAD-SHAPED CUP: Southern Congo 116
WOODEN BOWL: Southern Congo 116
CARVED WOODEN CLOTHES RACK: South Seas 116
WOODEN LADLE: African Gold Coast 118
BARK BASKET: Bathurst Island, Australia 118
ORNAMENTED PEMMICAN BASKET OF BIRCH BARK: Montagnais-
Naskapi, Labrador 119
MALLETS FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF BARK CLOTH 120
Central Celebes
Santa Cruz Islands
TAPA (BARK CLOTH): Fiji Archipelago 121
WOODEN SPEAR-POINT: Early Palaeolithic Age ; Clacton-on-Sea 121
PALAEOLITHIC BONE DAGGER 121
12 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
PAGE
BONE TOOLS 121
Bone Tools of the Fuegians
Fur Scraper (Caribou Leg-bone) Montagnais-Naskapi
Neolithic Bone Needle and Awl
KNIVES KNOWN AS HIRAZI OR AIKUDIN: Sirione Indians, Eastern
Bolivia 122
COCONUT OPENER: Bismarck Archipelago 122
CHIPPED-STONE TOOLS: Early Palaeolithic Stage 123
STONE POINTS: Younger Palaeolithic Stage 123
SPEAR -POINTS : Early Palaeolithic Stage and Younger Palaeolithic Stage 123
NEOLITHIC TOOLS 123
Cylindrical Hoe
Axe-head of Flintstone
STONE KNIFE FOR HUMAN SACRIFICES: Mexico 124
EGYPTIANS HOLLOWING OUT STONE VASES 125
MORU WOMAN GRINDING DURRHA 125
FAN, WOVEN FROM Coco LEAF: Santa Cruz Islands 125
TWINED BASKET: Alligator river, Arnhemland, Australia 125
SAMPLE OF SPIRAL-COIL TECHNIQUE WITH AWL 126
SPIRAL-BRAIDING TECHNIQUE: Tierra del Fuego 126
BASKET FROM YORUBA: Africa 126
YUKI BASKET: California 126
PATTERN FOR CROSS- WEAVING : Dutch East India 128
BASKET- WEAVING TECHNIQUES: Dutch East India 128
NEOLITHIC WHORL: Found at Knossos 131
PREHISTORIC SPINNING WHORL: Thessalian Sesklo-Culture 131
SPINNING CHIMANE INDIAN WOMAN: Bolivia 131
CRUDE EARTHENWARE CUP: Found in a Mound near Lodi, Calif. 134
SPIRAL-COIL POTTERY: South-east Coast of New Guinea 135
COIL POTTERY: Baila, North Rhodesia 135
WATER-JUG: Peru 137
PRINCIPAL GROUPS OF NEOLITHIC CERAMICS 137
GOLD SMELTER: Ancient Egypt 141
WINGED IBEX: Fourth Century B.C. 141
IRON FURNACE: Tanganyika, East Africa 142
AFRICAN KNIVES 143
EARLY EGYPTIAN TOOLS 145
CHAPTER SIX
BEER-BREWING WOMEN: Belgian Congo 150
BANTU WOMEN POUNDING FLOUR AND KNEADING DOUGH 153
BETEL-BOX: Timor 157
NARCOTIC DATURA PLANT 157
SPINY CAPSULE OF THE JAMESTOWN WEED 157
ILLUSTRATIONS 1 3
P\CK
SIXTEENTH-CENTURY REPRESENTATION OF THE 'BLACK DRINK'
CEREMONY OF NORTHERN FLORIDA 158
TUCANO INDIAN SMOKING CIGAR IN CIGAR-HOLDER 159
TOBACCO PIPES 159
Cherokee Pipe of Black Stone
Pipe of the Yakuts
Tobacco Pipe (Wood) : Pangwe, West Africa
Tobacco Pipe (Clay) : Pangwe, West Africa
BUNDLED CIGARS AND ASH-TRAY: Codex Florentino, Mexico 160
MEXICAN SMOKER: Codex Vindebonensis Mexico 160
SMOKING MAYA PRIEST: Stone Relief at the Temple of Palenque 160
WOODEN PIPE-BOWL: Haida Indians 161
PIPE-BOWL (Clay): North Cameroons 162
HOOKAH WATER-PIPE: Africa 162
EUROPEAN 'BAR' TOWARDS THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES 163
STILL FOR THE DISTILLATION OF PALM- WINE: Moluccas 164
KIRGHIZ STILL 165
KUMYSS-BAG: Yakuts 165
WOODEN BIRD ' DANCING ' ON BOW-STRING : Toy from the Santa
Cruz Islands 167
DOLLS 167
Dolls of Elm Bark and Willow Withes : Chippewa Indians
Clay Dolls of the Choroti Indians : Rio Pilcomavo, Bolivia
TOY HEDGEHOG: From the Ruins of Susa, 2000 B.C. 168
GAME BOARD : Pangwe, West Africa 1 68
SHINNY BALLS AND STICKS: Mono Indians 172
RACKET: Passamaquoddy Indians 172
'KiCK BALL': Mandan Indians 172
CHAPTER SEVEN
BLACKFOOT TRAVOIS 174
Tow BRIDGE: Peru 176
LIANA BRIDGE: Guatemala 177
POLE BRIDGE: Chibcha 178
AZTEC CARRYING DEVICES 179
CLAY VASE, SHOWING CARRYING METHOD OF Cuzco AMPHORA 179
INDIAN WOMAN CARRYING BABY ON TUMP-LINE 180
THE TUMP-LINE IN ALASKA AND MEXICO 180
MOBALI WOMAN CARRYING WATER: Belgian Congo 180
COOLIE' YOKE: Mexican Indians 180
CHINESE BAMBOO LITTER 181
SKIS COVERED WITH REINDEER SKIN: East Yaks 182
SNOW-SHOES 183
Montagnais-Naskapi Indians, Labrador
European Alps
Eskimo of Baffinland
14 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
PAGE
TOBOGGAN: Montagnais-Naskapi Indians, Labrador 184
EGYPTIAN CHARIOT: 14006.0. 187
CHINESE WHEELBARROW WITH SAIL 187
ROOT RAFTS: New Guinea 189
DUG-OUT CANOE 189
BALSA BOAT: Lake Titicaca, Bolivia 190
RAFT OF INFLATED ANIMAL SKIN: Northern India 191
Bow OF * TAILORED ' BIRCH - BARK CANOE : Montagnais - Naskapi
Indians, Labrador 193
OUTRIGGER CANOE WITH SAIL: Madura Strait, Indonesia 193
*MON' BOAT WITHOUT OUTRIGGER: Solomon Islands 193
PADDLE: Solomon Islands 194
CHAPTER EIGHT
CONGO MONEY, LINED UP DURING TRADE NEGOTIATIONS 195
RED WOODPECKER'S HEAD 'Com' AND ELK- HORN ' PURSE': Hupa
Indians 196
COWRIE SHELLS 196
SHELL MONEY 'BAKIAU' AND 'SAPISAPI': South-east New Guinea 198
TAMBU (DIWARRA) SHELL MONEY: Gazelle Peninsula 198
DRILL FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF SHELL DISKS: New Guinea 198
SECTION OF * PIG-MONEY' STRING: New Ireland 200
MOTHER-OF-PEARL MONEY JAR : Island Yap 200
BOAR'S FANG MONEY: New Guinea 201
MONEY RING OF THE YELLOW-SPOTTED TRIDACNA GIGAS SHELL:
Solomon Islands 201
' FBI ' MONEY STONE : Island Yap 202
ROLL OF FEATHER MONEY: Santa Cruz 204
FEATHER-MONEY NECKLACE: Banks Islands 204
BRICK-TEA MONEY : Central Asia 205
STONE-SALT MONEY: Abyssinia 205
COPPER COIN: Congo 208
IRON MONEY: Northern Congo 208
SPEAR-POINT MONEY: Fang, West Africa 208
MERCHANT WITH MONEY RING : Benin, West Africa 209
ANCIENT CHINESE BRONZE MONEY 210
ENGRAVED 'COPPER': Ceremonial Haida Money 210
CHAPTER NINE
GONG OF THE AVUNGURA: Belgian Congo 218
WAR DRUM: Pangwe, West Africa 219
AFRICAN SLIT DRUM 220
ILLUSTRATIONS 1 5
PAGE
SIGNAL DRUM OF THE TUCANO INDIANS : South America 220
SIGNAL DRUM OF THE BANSSA: Cameroons, West Africa 221
MONTAGNAIS - NASKAPI SIGNAL -POSTS INDICATING THE NEED OF
ASSISTANCE 226
MESSAGE STICK: -Kimberleys, Western Australia 227
LOVE-LETTER OF A YUKAGIR GIRL 229
LONE DOG'S WINTER-COUNT PAINTED ON BUFFALO SKIN: Sioux
Indians ' 230
ESKIMO PICTURE-WRITING 231
OLD MEXICAN CODEX DEPICTING MARRIAGE CEREMONY 232
NINE OF THE TWENTY WEEK-DAYS : Calendar Symbols from Ancient
Mexico 233
EVOLUTION OF THE LETTER *D' 234
FROM PICTURE TO LETTER: EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHS 234-235
CHINESE SYLLABIC LETTERS 236
CUNEIFORM OR WEDGE-CHARACTERS 237
CHAPTER TEN
INDIAN BABY, INSPECTING WORLD FROM GRANDMOTHER'S BACK:
Montagnais-Naskapi, Labrador 241
ANCIENT GHOST MASK FOR INITIATION CEREMONIES: Kiari, New
Guinea 246
'GHOSTS' FRIGHTENING THE INITIATION CANDIDATES: Selk'nam,
Tierra del Fuego 249
HOPI INITIATION 251
INITIATION CANDIDATES, PAINTED WHITE, PLAYING WARNING
XYLOPHONE: Pangwe, West Africa 253
TRIBAL INITIATION OF GIRLS: Vanyemba Tribe, Ngongo, Central
Angola 255
MASK OF A BUNDU NOVICE: West Africa 258
BUNDU SHE-DEVIL : West Africa 258
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MASK ' BusLA-M ATLA ' : Indians of the American North-west Coast 263
ANCIENT FERTILITY MASKS : Fumbam, West Africa 265
DANCING WITCH DOCTORS, WEARING ANIMAL MASKS: From the
Stone Age Cave at Trois Freres, Ariege, France 266
DANCE MASK: Melanesia 267
DANCE OF THE GRIZZLY BEARS: Sioux Indians 270
PAUTIWA, THE SUN-GOD: Pueblo Indians 271
KOYEMCI MASK: Pueblo Indians 272
KATCINA MASK, FOLLOWED BY KOYEMCIS: Pueblo Indians 274
OKIHEDE, THE BUFFALO DEMON: Mandan Indians 274
1 6 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
MUKISH CLOWN : West Africa 275
MUKISH ON STILTS : Vatchivoke, West Africa 275
STAGE SCREEN OF THE HOPI INDIANS 278
HOUSEHOLD BASKET USED AS DRUM : Yuma Indians 282
AFRICAN DRUMMER 282
MIRLITONS : Pangwe, West Africa 283
Music Bow: Gazelle Peninsula 284
HARP : Pangwe, West Africa 284
WOODEN TRUMPET : Pangwe, West Africa 284
NIAMBARA FLAUTIST: Upper Nile 285
CHAPTER TWELVE
BOTOCUDO DUEL, DECIDING HUNTING-GROUND VIOLATION 288
SHIELD : Murrumbidgee River, South-east Australia 289
AUSTRALIAN SPEAR 289
AUSTRALIAN NATIVE, USING SPEAR-THROWER 292
BLACKFEET JUDGE WOLF PLUME 301
MANGBETU PALAVER: Belgian Congo 302
PALAVER STOOL: Bamum, Cameroons 303
TOP OF CHIEFTAIN'S MACE: Songo, Portuguese Congo 304
SHILLUK WARRIORS 306
BENIN WARRIOR : West Africa 308
DJUR WARRIOR : Africa 309
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MAGIC MASK AGAINST THE PLAGUE: Liberia 312
EASTER CELEBRATION OF THE QUICHE INDIANS: Guatemala 315
DOLLS USED FOR MAGIC: Zulu, South Africa 319
MAGIC STAFF: Batak, Borneo 322
FETISH POT: West Africa 323
AMULET: Manyema, Congo 323
MAGIC BUZZARD SKIN WORN BY ZULU: Natal, South Africa 326
KOPPENSNELLEN : New Guinea 328
ANCESTRAL FIGURES : Haiti and Indonesia 328
TJURUNGA OR SACRED STONE: Arunta, Central Australia 329
MAGIC TRIBAL BUNDLE OF THE PAWNEE: Oklahoma 330
SACRED WANING A OF THE SPIDER TOTEM : Arunta, Central Australia 330
FETISH FIGURE: Western Congo 330
ANCESTRAL SKULL IN WOODEN 'KORWAR': Dutch New Guinea 331
FETISH SCEPTRE: Urua, Southern Congo 332
SYMBOL OF THE GOD OF LIGHTNING: Togo 332
THE-HOLY TIBETAN PRAYER: Om Mani Padme Hum 335
ILLUSTRATIONS 17
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
PAGE
'THE MAN IN THE MOON': Haida Indian Drawing 337
"THERE WAS ONE BAG WITH RAIN AND ONE WITH SNOW ..." 343
"HE LOOKED AT THE MOON, CLOSE AT HAND . . ." 348
"RABBIT ALSO BOWED TO THE FIRE, LOWER AND LOWER ..." 351
"IN FALLING, THEY BECAME GIDDY AND SHUT THEIR EYES ..." 353
"ON THEIR WAY THEY MET ANOTHER DUG-OUT ..." 355
"I CHANGED INTO A BEAVER. NOW GO BACK HOME ..." 359
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
NAILED SKULL: Puig Castellar (Spain) 365
SKULL, PAINTED IN RED, WHITE, AND YELLOW: Kopapinga Tribe,
Arnhemland, Australia 366
PAINTED SKULL, MODELLED WITH CLAY: New Ireland 368
SKULL RECEPTACLE: Eastern Melanesia 369
JIVARO HEAD TROPHY 369
STUFFED HUMAN HEAD : New Guinea 370
WOODEN DANCE MASK: Southern Congo 370
SKULL DRUM OF THE PANGWE 373
'NiOMBO 5 : Babwende, West Africa 376
SCAFFOLD BURIAL OF CHIEF CRAZY WOLF: Crow Indians 377
TIBETAN CHORTEN CONTAINING ASHES OF A LAMA 381
CHAPTER ONE
Of Home and Hearth and Pots and Pans
LET us GO HOME " is a sanctified expression in any language. The
outside world is seen as a struggle for existence, a contest to
guard vital human relationships against the ravages of rain and cold
and heat and the unpredictable influences of things and people. But
inside it is good to feel sheltered among dear ones and to relax amid
the intimate surroundings of the fireplace. There is no human race
without a deep appreciation of the blessings of home, whatever its
shape, and when night falls all human beings on earth regardless of
their particular faiths like to close their eyes to rest in the spirit
of the Cornish ' litany ' :
From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-legged beasties,
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us.
Primitive man living in a world of animated things and ever-
present spirits, and finding himself exposed to the immediate threats
of nature, feels this desire more keenly than the civilized mind
readily understands.
The older, the more primitive, a people, the more extensive is the
area they consider their home. To most primitive peoples it is not
the more or less temporary structure which shelters the family from
night and from wind and rain that is the basic expression of * home,'
but rather the tribal land in its entirety. Any intruder who dares
to set foot on its sacred soil pays with his life for his trespass. The
plots on which individual families erect their shelters for the night
are not important ; the land is their home. The land belongs to all,
and all belong to the land which the tribe claims as its own.
What is the form of the most ancient human habitation ? Is the
* cave man ' as depicted in newspaper cartoons really the earliest
home-owner ? Not at all. The fact that scientists have found many
of the earliest possessions of man in caves, where preservation was
best maintained through the millenniums, has misled the layman
to believe that the cave was prehistoric man's first solution to his
housing problem. This notion is an underestimation of human
ingenuity. It makes no allowance for climatic and geographic
influences on the choice of shelters.
The existence of caves in a region was by no means a prerequisite
19
20 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
of human settlement ; more material evidences of prehistoric home
life have been found in open places than in caves. Wherever caves
or grottoes were chosen as abodes there was a special reason for
their suitability, such as the severity of climate at the peaks of the
glacial periods like the so-called Mousterian epoch, or the require-
ments of the hunt for game, abundant in alpine regions. The man
of the European 'bone culture' whose prey was the cave bears
(Ursus spelceus) followed them into the high alps where he therefore
made his home. The highest dwelling of this type is the so-called
" Dragon Hole " near Vattis (Switzerland), which lies 8000 feet
above sea-level. But those contemporaries of this alpine hunter
whose game were animals of the lower regions did not dwell in
caves. There is no evidence that peoples of the palaeolithic pre-
Chellean culture, for instance, ever lived in caves. Troglodytism,
or cave life, was either a temporary necessity or, even more often,
a mere adjunct to the customary life in hand-built abodes. The
best-known prehistoric caves discovered and described by modern
scientists Le Moustier in the French Vezere Valley, Font-de-
Gaume in the Dordogne, Le Mas D'Azil (Ariege), the grotto of
Aurignac (Haute- Garonne), and the ancient Italian and Spanish
caves reveal the very interesting fact that their main purpose was
not to serve as family homes but rather as community houses or, if
we may use the term in this connexion, as churches. While the
space near their entrances occasionally served temporal purposes,
the inner halls show sacred paintings of religious and magic signi-
ficance ; and remains of altars with displays of animal skulls
indicate clearly that they were halls of worship. Only the front
parts of the caves were occasionally used for dwellings, and, even
then, the half-open shelter under overhanging rock gables at the
entrances was apparently preferred.
Among the most primitive tribes of our time who still live on
the cultural level of the Stone Age and there are many only the
Veddas of Ceylon and the Toala of Celebes show a preference
for troglodytic homes, because caves are abundant in their terri-
tories. Most tribes equally ancient prefer the windbreak, that
oldest * house ' of warm climates, the use of which was very
common among the brethren of the * cave men ' of palaeolithic
times. Its flimsy materials could not survive the millenniums,
although the remnants of one such diluvial ' house ' were discovered
by Forrer near Spichern in the Alsace.
The windbreak consists of a simple structure of trees or branches
stuck into the soil to form a straight wall or semicircular enclosure.
The framework is covered with brush, leaves, bark, or grass to
OF HOME AND HEARTH AND POTS AND PANS
21
provide a rudimentary shelter against wind and rain. Those
nomadic tribes whose form of economy forces them to roam
continuously over large areas choose it for their homes tribes
like the Australians, the now extinct Tasmanians, the Veddas, the
Negritos, the Bushmen, and many American Indians. Following
the moving herds of their game animals, constantly on the look-out
for the herbs, roots, and berries which constitute their food supplies,
TASMANIAN WINDBREAK
After Lips
these people can build or break up their living-quarters quickly.
If several families hunt together they build their windbreaks side
by side. While on hunting trips the Bushmen find even quicker
shelter in their so-called bosjes by simply tying together the branches
of growing shrubs ; but in the sandy regions of the Kalahari
their windbreaks are of more solid construction. Tribes of the
Chaco occasionally arrange their protective roofs in long rows and
cover them with rush ; the Negritos use grass. The Andamanese
shelter is nothing but a windbreak resting on four poles. American
Indians such as the Apache build wicki-ups of twigs interlaced with
brush, and use them as their favourite summer abodes.
Even this most ancient man-built shelter can be considered a
prototype of the fundamental form of the two oldest types of house :
the dome-shaped round hut or ' beehive ' and the quadrangular
house. The most primitive tribes often prefer the round hut,
which is to be found in Australia and among many African and
American peoples. Architecturally, it is simply two semicircular
wind-breaks, woven together. The quadrangular house, on the
22
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
WINDBREAK
Andaman Islands
After A. R. Brown
other hand, was developed by roofing over the area between the
two parallel vertically erected windbreaks.
The windbreak and the house
forms derived from it are satis-
factory only in comparatively mild
climates. In cooler regions a
dwelling must be constructed of
materials better adapted to keep
out wind and cold but which
can nevertheless be quickly put
together. The igloo of the Eskimo
is nothing but a beehive hut built
of snow and ice bricks. A long,
open hallway leading to the out-
side provides adequate ventilation while insulating the entrance
against cold winds. The warm comfort of the Eskimo abode is
* BEEHIVE' OR ROUND HUT
OF HOME AND HEARTH AND POTS AND PANS
well known, but, as Stefansson reports, " a new camp is warmer
than an old one, for a new snow house is a snow house, but an old
one is an ice house/' Although the building of an igloo takes
more time than a tropical dome-shaped hut, it is nevertheless only a
temporary home of hunters, which must be abandoned in the spring
when the snow on the roof begins to thaw and when puddles of
water on the floor make " the interior of every Eskimo house like
a lake all summer." The same dwelling may be reoccupied during
the autumn when the snow begins to freeze, but this is done only
when its former occupants happen to return to the same region.
The Eskimo as well as many
other primitive tribes have often
been induced by the white man's
greed to work in mines and re-
ceive, as a reward, the dubious
benefits of the civilizers' housing
facilities in the form of wooden
or tin-plate hovels. The results
at Wainwright Inlet, for instance,
have been so damaging to the
natives' health that the white man
himself has had to persuade
them to return to the old igloo.
Similar experiments have been
made in many other regions
under civilized influence in
South Africa, for one and the result has always been detrimental.
We saw that the windbreak, man's oldest hand-built shelter,
foreshadows even in its crudest beginnings the shape of the two
principal house types : the dome-shaped beehive and the quad-
rangular house. But also the tent, another easily movable shelter,
has its origin in the windbreak. The different types of tents used
by primitive man and by his later imitators of the civilized world
are characteristic of nomadic peoples. Their livelihood being
derived from hunting or herding, they must be able to dismantle
their houses quickly.
The tent of the arctic, subarctic, and related tribes is a conical
structure of wooden poles arranged in a circular pattern and
covered, according to climate and season, with bark or animal
skins. Well known to most of us since boyhood days is the tipi
or teepee of the Plains Indians which is of characteristic shape
and of especially fine workmanship. What story of * Wild West '
adventure would be complete without mention of the teepee ?
QUADRANGULAR HOUSE
Kwakiutl Indians
After H. W. Krieger
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
Although its general appearance is well known, its method of con-
struction is not equally familiar, so it may be worth while to quote
the description by Waterman :
In setting up the tipi, two poles were put together in the form of
a V and lashed at their intersections with the end of a rope, the rest
of which was left dangling. A third pole was then fastened to the
apex of the V, and the three were raised into the air to form a tripod.
This was the foundation of the tent. Additional poles were carefully
laid in place, the women for this was women's work tossing a
turn or hitch of the rope over each new pole and binding the whole
firmly together. The cover was next hoisted into place and stretched
around the framework, being pegged down to the ground all
round. The cover was so shaped that at the top of the tent there
was an opening left for the escape of the smoke, and flanking the
smoke hole were two flaps known as " ears." The distribution of
this type of dwelling was dependent upon the distribution of the
buffalo. A whole tribe would sometimes hang on the flanks of a
buffalo herd, moving as the herd moved.
Each detail is given the greatest of care, and although the main
characteristic of the Indian tent is its mobility, the precision of all
its parts in assembly never suffers.
The layman occasionally confuses
the teepee with the wigwam of the
Algonquian - speaking peoples of
the Atlantic side of the North
American continent. The wigwam
is no tent, the word merely mean-
ing * dwelling/ It is a conical
lodge with an arched-over roof of
the type which the Sac, the Fox,
and other Indian tribes still occupy
to-day.
The tents of the Indians of the
interior of Labrador, like the Nas-
kapi, are not quite as elaborate as
the Plains Indians' teepees. Their
ground plan, however, is the same.
In the wilderness of the present-day
hunting grounds of these tribes
which have remained unchanged through the centuries many an
old hunter still covers his tent with caribou skins in the winter
and with birch bark in the summer, stitching the pieces together
with a bone needle and carefully tailoring them to fit the pole
TEEPEE
Plains Indians
OF HOME AND HEARTH AND POTS AND PANS
structure. But in the Hudson's Bay Company posts modem
Indians obtain in exchange for their precious furs the white man's
heavy duck cloth to cover tents, whose main structure follows
that of the olden times with only the addition of a horizontal
roof- tree. Such a tent lacks the beauty of the older models whose
naturally blended aspect is achieved by skin and bark, but when
it is snowed on there is nothing to indicate its machine-made
shoddiness.
The tents of the Lapps, the only arctic tribe of Europe, are
very similar to the North American varieties. During the summer
PRINCIPAL TYPES OF TENTS
r^
/"\
7
8
/m\
i. Northern Asia 5. Asiatic Herdsmen
North America 6. Herdsmen of Tibet and Arabia
2. Lapps 7. Lake Chad region, Somaliland
3. Eskimo 8. Patagonians, Araucanians
4. Palaeo-Asiatic Tribes
After Montandon
these goattas are abandoned for more convenient log huts of light
construction which, however, maintain many of the structural
features of the tent. The Russian Finns and the peoples of the
Amur region still put two windbreaks together to form a saddle-
shaped roof. The felt- or leather-covered yourtas of the Central
Asiatic nomads are low and spreading and usually erected over pits
in the ground. These dwellings are used by many tribes throughout
Central Asia extending to the borders of Tibet. The black tents
of the Tibetans, loosely woven from the hairs of the yak, allow a
veiled view of the outside, although they are completely waterproof.
The tents of the North African desert nomads have a rectangular
ground-plan, and are covered with palm leaves or with animal
skins. South American nomads of the Patagonian Plateau, the
Tehuelche and the Tsoneca, use similarly convenient fur-covered
tents.
The white man with all his resources has not been able to invent
26 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
anything more practical than the tent for hunting expeditions,
or for housing mobile troops even in this age of mechanized warfare.
Boy Scouts and Girl Guides learn to appreciate nature while
camping in the tent, and many of us may have protected our picnic
grounds or camp-fires with a quickly erected windbreak without
recognizing its venerable past. The skilled arctic hunter, Indian
or white, still knows the art of erecting an overnight shelter by arch-
ing interwoven brush and trees, which he then covers with thick
layers of snow and ice.
All these ancient types of temporary shelters have the common
characteristic that they may be rapidly constructed from materials
at hand or assembled and dismantled with transportable materials.
But what were the first sturdier structures like ? What are the fore-
runners of the house as we know it ? It may seem strange, yet it is
of significance, that the first more solid constructions were not
erected to shelter humans, but to protect and preserve the collected
wild-plant products on which their sustenance depended. A
large group of tribes, especially of Australia and America, lives
partially or exclusively on one or more wild plants whose seeds,
roots, bulbs, or tubers provide their food during almost the entire
year. Although still ignorant of agricultural cultivation, these
harvesters derive their livelihood from the abundance of the wild
fields which nature has provided at certain spots on their lands.
It may be that wild roots grow there by the thousands, or that wild
rice fields or wild acorn groves furnish the available food ; in any
instance, peoples who gather them are vitally concerned with their
preservation. These tribes no longer live from hand to mouth ;
they guarantee their future economic security by the preservation
of wild products. Close to the harvesting fields they erect caches
and storage houses solid enough to protect the precious wild harvest,
while they themselves continue to live in dwellings of a more or
less flimsy construction. The storage houses of, for instance, the
acorn harvesters of California are substantial structures with
thatched roofs of conical shape.
A permanent family home for early peoples is a luxury to be
afforded only by those who settled on the land as agriculturists.
Only they could develop comfortable living-quarters in our sense
of the term. From the simple square or quadrangular house
there was successively devised a great variety of dwellings, especially
thatched, solid huts with gabled roofs and of larger dimensions
than the older types of habitation. This kind of abode, the first
* firm ' house, appeared in Neolithic times during the so-called
Campignian period. In living cultures it is the home of those
OF HOME AND HEARTH AND POTS AND PANS 27
simpler farming societies that are forced into a settled way of life
by the necessity of waiting for the ripening of the crops they plant.
In regions of mixed cultural influences the houses of agriculturists
may assume many variegated forms, with oval or square ground
plans, the latter occasionally with pyramidal roofs ; or they may be
erected on trees or piles. For the first time there appears a strong
emphasis on efforts to beautify the inner and outer appearance of the
home. A greater variety of materials is used to insure the solidity
of the structure. A few branches or wooden piles are no longer
STORAGE HOUSES FOR ACORNS
Miwok Indians, California
After Schmidt-Koppers
considered sufficient to build a house ; soil or clay or manure is
skilfully blended with straw and grass and other binding materials
to produce walls that are able to withstand the change of the seasons.
The house, no longer a temporary shelter providing occasional pro-
tection, begins to be filled with a greater wealth of belongings,
and the increasing sedentariness of the dweller and owner creates
the opportunity for community life. For the first time, larger
groups of people dwell together permanently. Common interests
and a generally more sociable attitude create the need for a public
meeting place. This leads to the construction of community
houses where the men hold 'conferences and where musicians and
story-tellers entertain the entire tribe.
A West African Pangwe man who marries immediately goes
to work to build two houses : one as the main domain for his
wife and children ; the other, a larger one, as an assembly house
2o THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
where he passes most of his time except for meals and night-time
spent with his family. As the family grows the settlement grows
with it, and is often so neat in appearance that Tessmann compares
the individual homes with " doll houses, fresh from the box."
Especially in Africa, the covering of the basic wooden structures
with clay and similar materials has produced shapes of picturesque
attractiveness. Among the master-builders of such homes are the
Musgu of northern Merun. In the Niger region houses with a
square ground-plan and a flat roof are preferred ; these have been
CLAY HOUSES
Musgu, Cameroons, West Africa
After G. Buschan
adopted almost without any change by the high-culture peoples
of Anatolia, Persia, and the central and north-western provinces of
India. Even sun-dried bricks were used at an early date, although
these primitive agriculturists who know the art of baked earthenware
have not yet acquired the knowledge of the baked bricks. Clay
as a building material also plays an important role in the house-
building of many Central and North American Indians, among
them the Navaho and the Pueblo.
Human imagination applied to factors of climate and geography
provides almost boundless variety to the homes of the agriculturists.
Settlement near a lake shore or in swampy land has resulted in the
construction of houses on piles. Pile houses, however, are also
built in dry regions, but in such cases this construction is used
for protection against hostile invaders. The pile houses of New
Guinea, elevated four to ten feet or higher, are constructed in
harmonious and spacious patterns.
OF HOME AND HEARTH AND POTS AND PANS
2 9
Pile structures have been known to man since the dawn of time,
as the remnants of the habitations of the prehistoric Lake Dwellers
prove. They were built in Europe at a time when caves were still
occasionally used for temporary quarters. Most famed among
these ancient settlements are the homes of the Lake Dwellers who
lived in a region comprising parts of modern Switzerland, Germany,
and Italy during the Neolithic period. These homes even had their
watch-dogs, the Canis familiaris palustris breed. The solid wooden
TUKUL (DWELLING)
Upper Nile
After Bernatzik
THATCHED HOUSE
Batak, Sumatra
After Gendreau
floors show inlaid ornamentations of birch bark ; remains of bast
mats have been found ; and many luxuries, preserved through the
millenniums by favourable circumstances, testify to a high standard
of living. Outside Europe the prehistoric builders constructed pile
houses in Eastern Asia and in Indo-China. These houses were
arranged in groups, usually in rows, just as they are to-day in the
villages of the South Seas. In Borneo occasionally the whole village
community dwells in a single house, which may extend for a length
of more than one hundred yards. Similar ' great-houses ' be-
longing to prehistoric times have been excavated in Europe,
especially in the Ukraine. Long communal houses are the custo-
mary living-quarters of many tribes in Indonesia and in South
America, where they usually house an entire sib of as many as one
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
hundred people. Or an entire village community may dwell in two
or three such houses arranged round a central square. A Papuan
house of New Guinea was two hundred feet long and forty feet
wide. It was equipped " with a central hall, which runs the entire
length of the house and is reserved for the use of men ; on either
side are the walled-off rooms. These consist of three storeys.
In the lowest of all the cooking is done, the middle one is for the
women and children, and the top storey for the men/'
Indian tribes of Alaska and British Colum-
bia lived in houses " large enough to shelter
two or three generations and two or more
social classes. The house floor was arranged
in concentric platforms, each succeeding
platform two or three feet above the one
beneath. Long and thick retaining slabs of
hewn cedar formed the retaining walls of
each platform/' Such homes of the Tlingit
had picturesque names like * the-spot-that-
looks - good/ * place - where - you - can - swim-
PAINT- through/ * bear-man house/ etc., recalling
the houses of mediaeval France whose names
were derived from their painted posters like
' House of the Grinning Jester/ ' House of
the Jumping Fish/ and Balzac's immortal
* House of the Ball-playing Cat/
The cliff dwellings of the Pueblo constitute another variety of
the primitive house some of them resemble nothing so much
as the sky-scrapers that tower above New York and are considered
marvels of modern ingenuity. African counterparts of the Pueblo
dwellings are the rock houses at Medinine in Tunisia which have
carved-out rooms side by side.
The structure of the Pueblo mesas and similar ancient structures
like the Crimean cliff dwellings, the cone dwellings of Cappadocia,
and the cavate lodges in Arizona, clearly indicate that a decisive
motive of the villagers was defence against intruders or enemies.
Where nature's rock formations have not fortified a place, man has
done his best to build earthworks or similar protective devices.
African villages are often surrounded by mighty walls or palisades,
and most elaborate measures were taken for protection, especially
during the times of the great slave hunts. In the old Sudan
cultures houses were often completely subterranean. To-day
most homes in the Niger region are sunk in the soil. The Banda
of French Equatorial Africa build their houses in strategic locations,
HOUSE-FRONT
ING OF A BEAR
Tsimshian Indians
North Pacific Coast
After Boas
OF HOME AND HEARTH AND POTS AND PANS 3!
to facilitate a close watch over the surrounding terrain. These
houses are equipped with entrances so low that the visitor has to
crawl on hands and knees into the * parlour.' In the eastern
Mbamland of the Cameroons the remnants of the gigantic forti-
fications erected by the Fullah, the Wute, and the Tikar speak a
vivid language of the past. Their palisades had massive gates and
HOPI CLIFF DWELLING
The ancient town of Walpi
American Museum of Natural History, New York
strong clay walls up to twenty feet high, with embrasures through
which the defenders hurled arrows and spears upon attackers.
The tree houses of New Guinea can be reached only with the
aid of rope-ladders which are pulled up during the night. Where
doors or their primitive equivalents are known, mechanisms have
been devised which make opening them a job for * insiders only/
* Latch-keys ' made of wood may assume such tremendous dimen-
sions that no husband could possibly succeed in concealing one
in his pocket when he goes out at night.
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
If we judge the homes of primitive man from an aesthetic angle
the peoples of Polynesia may well carry off the prize. The Maori
of New Zealand, for instance, transform their square houses into
impressive monuments of art. The canoe-shaped roofs, thatched
with reed, grass, or palm leaves, are supported by carved pillars
of exquisite beauty. A great variety of forms shows the high
cultural level achieved by these islanders. From the simple,
mat-covered huts of the common people to the artistically fashioned
homes of the wealthy, a wide
range of ornamental styles and
construction is represented ; and
the whara, or community house,
is a treasure of artistic workman-
ship and taste. Hawaii, Samoa,
Niuafoo are names which stand
for the finest architectural and
artistic achievements reached by
primitive man ; and the colossal
stone statues of Easter Island
and the prehistoric basalt ruins
of Ponape still shrouded in
mystery are remnants of by-
gone grandeur. The pyramid-
shaped * stages ' or storage houses
of the Maori, on which food was
piled in gigantic quantities for
the convenience of the guests
attending the hakari festivals, reached heights up to ninety feet,
with bases thirty feet square supporting sides that tapered toward
an apex.
When the time had arrived that man began to record his own
history the old high cultures were taking shape. Large groups of
residents concentrated in communities which no longer had the
appearance of mere villages. New and stronger tools permitted
the use of the hewn stone for human dwellings and public buildings ;
the palaces of the rich began to mark the differentiations of castes
and classes the city was born. Wealth and power manifested them-
selves in monuments of towering height, built as demonstrations
of might for ages to come.
The houses of the Aztecs of ancient Mexico varied from the
branch-covered huts of the hot regions to the brick houses of the
highlands, culminating in majestic temples and palaces. The houses
of worship built by the Maya of Guatemala were even mightier.
BANDA DWELLING
French Equatorial Africa
After Daigre
OF HOME AND HEARTH AND POTS AND PANS
33
The buildings of these ancient peoples, erected for * eternity,'
have never been surpassed. Even to-day the pyramids of the
Egyptians still rank among the seven wonders of the world ; and
we have not yet learnt to duplicate their art of cutting stones with
such precision that they can be joined without mortar for ever-
lasting durability. The
temples of India and
China and the ruins of
Ur are evidences of such
skill and wealth that our
civilization of mechanized
haste can but humbly ad-
mire them. We have been
equally unable to mix
mortar of the quality used
in the Roman viaducts,
palaces, and monuments.
Our present-day trowel is
of the same shape as the
Roman, because it is the
perfect shape.
From windbreak to pent-
house, from tree hut to
fortress the development
of the buildings erected by
the hand of man reads
like a saga of might and
intelligence. Yet even the
most modern house in
order to be habitable still
depends on an elementary
force which was given to
earliest man by the gods.
This eternal gift is fire.
No home, no tribe, no human life, would have been possible
without the blessings of fire, that mysterious brother to the sun.
Its importance is so paramount in the human mind that there
is no people on earth who does not have tales and sagas to explain
its origin. It is considered so precious a treasure that many myths
relate that man had to pilfer it from gods who were unwilling to
share it with the mortals. According to the Greeks, Prometheus
stole it from Zeus and suffered horrible punishment in consequence.
To some primitive Australians, the thief was the wren, a tiny bird,
CARVED HOUSE POST
Maori, New Zealand
Museum of Ethnology, Cologne
34 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
who brought the divine spark from heaven under its tail. Other
Australian tribes believe that the fire was stolen from two super-
humans who tried to withhold it from man ; or that a raven
snatched it from the top of the digging stick of Karakaruk, one of
the virgins later transported to the skies where she stands now in a
cluster of stars known to the white man as the Pleiades.
To many peoples with written and with unwritten histories
fire is holy. In India the god of fire, Agni, is the messenger be-
tween man and his gods who carries the sacrificed souls *from the
alter of fire up to the immortals. The Parsee Zoroastrians worship
the creator of the world by the symbol of fire, " because it is the most
perfect symbol of the Deity, on account of its purity, brightness,
activity, subtility, fecundity, and incorruptibility." The Germanit
tribes honoured the element in their solstitial fires. In our own
Bible God appeared to Moses in a burning bush, and the Holy
Ghost materialized in the form of a flame. Needless to say, the
flowering imagination of primitive man has glorified the great
phenomenon of fire by countless myths, many of them of stirring
beauty and all revealing a sense of veneration. Maui, the Polynesian
god-hero of the Maori who lifted their island from the sea, is also
the bringer of the fire. The African Herero combine ancestor-
worship with their worship of the holy fire which burns in the
homestead of the oruzo or priest and is kept alive with sticks of
the sacred Omumborombonga tree (Lombretum primigenuni), the
dwelling-place of the ancestral souls. The girl who tends this holy
fire must remain unmarried like the Roman Vestal Virgins.
The life of this fire is identified with the life of the tribe. If a
foreign chieftain gets hold of it he becomes the master and pro-
tector of the Herero, as happened in 1850 when many Herero
* took the fire ' of the Maherero and thereby became members of
the latter tribe.
In the hearth of each Buryat tent lives gali ezen y the fire spirit,
who is " of human shape and only small in size while in the hearth. "
No rubbish, dirt, or other refuse may be thrown into the fire
this would insult his feelings. No knife or pointed tool must be
used to stir the fire ; it might blind gali ezen and render him unable
.to chase the evil spirits away from the hut. He receives sacrifices
prior to all other gods. The fire is the property, nay, a part of the
sib itself. No foreigner is allowed to take fire from the hearth,
and if a visitor has lit his pipe while in a Buryat home he must
empty it before he leaves.
Numerous are the devices to kindle the precious element ; early
ingenuity invented many methods to bring forth the revered spark.
OF HOME AND HEARTH AND POTS AND PANS
35
The Australians produce it by drilling, twirling, or rubbing a wooden
stick on a wooden base or by * sawing ' a soft log with a boomerang
of hard wood. When the chipped-off wooden particles begin to
smoulder they are caught with tinder and fed with dry grass until
a flame is produced. The fire-borer is a round stick which is
twirled round within depressions made in another stick. The
twirling continues until smoke appears in the sawdust, and the
METHODS OF KINDLING THE FIRE
\
Fire-plough
Twirling Fire
Fire-saw
Drilling Fire with Bow-drill
tinder, after being gently blown on, breaks into a flame. Two
bamboo splints serve as another type of fire-saw. One has a
groove surrounded by tinder, the other is moved back and forth
along the groove in a saw-like motion. The Polynesian fire-grater
is another variety, consisting of a piece of pointed hardwood with
which a softer log is rubbed until the sawdust begins to smoulder.
The distribution of the drilling method is world-wide from
the African Bushmen to the North and South American Indians.
Ingenious variations are the cord drill, the bow drill, and the
' pump ' drill of the North American Indians, with strings and
spindles serving to mechanize the arduous labour of drilling.
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
The so-called fire-plough method, which is the rubbing of a
lengthwise-notched stick with another stick, is customary among
the peoples of Borneo, Polynesia, and Micronesia, and is also
referred to in the creation myth of the
Phoenicians. Other variations of the fire-
saw are used by the Malays and by the
natives of New Guinea. Even primitive
1 lighters ' are known, involving the still
unchanged operation of creating" sparks by
striking stone or metal against stone. This
practice is customary with the Eskimo
because scarcity of dry wood in icebound
regions necessitates the use of other
materials, and among many South Ameri-
can tribes. More ingenious is the fire-
pump of India and Borneo. It consists
of a wooden cylinder in which a piece of
tinder is compressed with a closely fitting
piston which is stroked up and down until
sparks are produced.
Such primitive methods of producing
TINDER BOX, FASHIONED fire have survived the ages, as our modern
FROM ARMADILLO TAIL Boy Scouts know. Like to-day's primitive
Tapiete and Toba Indians peoples, prehistoric man depended upon
After NordenskiVld ^ m ' In the ice - a gf. S r * ves of northern
Europe pyrites and nmt have been found
side by side. The Romans discovered the fire-creating qualities
of sulphur, and used it in combination with their fire-stones. It
was not until about 1650 that chemical lighters, operating on a
combination of phosphorus and sulphur,
made their first appearance. Almost two
hundred years later, around 1820, the
first * phosphdric bottles/ complete with
sulphur-treated matches, were sold in
London ; S. Jones's ' Lucifer matches '
and later improvements quickly followed.
Next to the sheltering roof, the fire
has been since the dawn of time the main
element in the conception of * home.'
It gave the human touch to the mere
shelter or abode ; it is the mark of homo sapiens, however
primitive his belongings, because no animal has ever been able
to control or maintain this blessed gift. When nostalgia besets
HEAD-REST OF WOOD
Geelvink Bay, New Guinea
After Wood
OF HOME AND HEARTH AND POTS AND PANS 37
us far from home it is the fireplace that we most frequently recall
as the symbol of its pleasantest associations.
To primitive man fire may mean the difference between life
and death. It is no wonder that he tries to keep fire alive under
all circumstances, to have it always available. If it threaten^ to
die out blow-pipes and fire-fans rekindle it in Indian homes ;
bellows are used in Africa. Even on trips and excursions fire is
carried along. The Eastern Bolivian Noeze carry packages of
smouldering particles of the motacu flower carefully wrapped in
moist pataju leaves. Many South American tribes maintain
regular * filling stations ' containing stores of smouldering tinder
WOODEN HEAD-REST
Santa Cruz Islands
After Wood
under ashes in specially erected rain-protected huts at the cross-roads
of jungle paths, so that the passers-by can readily obtain the precious
element, which they cannot easily kindle in the humid primeval
forest. When Albert Schweitzer told some West African natives
about European forest fires they laughed. The woods are wet like
sponges how can they burn ?
The fire in the middle of the tent, in the hut, or in the house is
the centre of all home life, the source of warmth, the creator of
palatable food, the inspiring flame which brings olden tales to life
and draws the family circle closer. At night it is the keeper of
warmth and the friendly protector against tropical insects.
The roof and the fire are the two fundamental elements in the
notion * home/ but no man has been content throughout time to
satisfy only his most fundamental needs. For comfort and for an
expression of his individual desires he has devised furnishings
for the home.
A child of nature sleeps in a way most comfortably suited to the
prevailing climate. The earliest bed of man was the simple
38 . THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
floor-covering of fresh twigs and branches. Coverings of animal
skins are used in Tierra del Fuego and in many North American
regions ; the warmer climates of Australia and South Africa allow
much scantier coverings or permit people to dispense with them
HEAD-REST
Kafirs, South Africa
After Wood
altogether. Sleeping naked in wood ashes is preferred by many
African tribes as a healthy practice which protects the body from
cold and insects. Most Pacific and Southern Asiatic tribes sleep on
neatly woven mats. In Polynesia the number and age of the mats
in a household determine the wealth of its owner.
HEAD-REST
Mamberamo, New Guinea
After Wood
The first ' pillow ' is a head-rest which may assume any imagin-
able shape from a crude log to the artistically carved square bench
that supports and protects the complicated native coiffures. In
Africa and South America it has developed into a richly carved
little stool, a handsome piece of * interior decoration.'
A regular bed in our sense combines the conception of a resting
place with elevations above the floor-level. Such forerunners
of the modern bed are the sleeping benches of clay or soil along
the inner walls of houses common in West Africa and the Sudan,
OF HOME AND HEARTH AND POTS AND PANS
39
as well as among the Indians of the American north-west coast.
Platform-shaped beds of wood, occasionally covered with very
comfortable plaited * mattresses/
are used by many primitive
South American jungle house-
holds, and are also common in
Africa. They are a very ancient
invention, regarded as even older
than another famed primitive
sleeping device, the hammock,
which seamen still recognize as
thoroughly practical and comfort-
able. Hammocks were developed
in New Guinea and especi-
ally among the South American
tribes of the tropical East. Woven
of plant fibres, they criss-cross
BENCH OF CEDARWOOD
Supposed to represent figure of
Jaguar
Guarani Indians, East Paraguay
After P. F. Midler
the living-room of the huts " like the liana twists " outdoors in the
AFRICAN CHIEFTAIN'S STOOL
Cameroons
Wood carving, decorated with cowrie shells and glass beads
Museum of Ethnology, Cologne
woods. As a protection against insects, many kinds of primitive
mosquito-nets have been invented. Among the Guato Indians
40 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
nets have the shape of a wide sack woven of tucum-leaf fibres,
and are suspended so that the opening is over the sleeper's face.
The Nor- Papua of New Guinea fashion whole sleeping-bags of
long kirfin grass. These bags are highly desired trade objects
among the islanders.
The average primitive household does not include tables and chairs
as necessary items of furniture. The family members prefer
to sit on mats or animal skins or on the bare soil, occasionally
on rc^ks and logs. Simple stools and benches are found among
the aborigines of South America and Africa. The possession of
a chair is certainly not regarded as an addition to comfort. When
the idea of dignity and the desire to feel superior, even physically,
possess the mind, the chair becomes a
medium of elevation ; the higher rank
of a person is visibly expressed by en-
throning him on a magician's or chief -
WOODEN BOWL tain's stool. This is especially customary
Santa Cruz Islands in the Dark Continent, where chieftains'
Museum of Ethnology, stools, painstakingly carved, are among
Cologne the finest manifestations of African
sculptural art. Precious cowrie shells
and glass beads are often used to decorate thrones, some of them
completely covered with thousands of blue and white glass beads
under which the magnificent carvings are completely concealed.
But even without heavy furniture, the primitive home impresses
the visitor by its general air of comfort and by the presence of
essential things which contribute to the happiness of family life
within the general framework of its cultural level. And utility is
not the only consideration ; sense of colour and form and good taste
characterize the furnishings of even the simplest home, from the
ochre-painted wooden containers and handsomely ornamented
string bags of the Australians to the beautiful pottery and artistic
spoons and ladles of Africa. The magnificently carved bowls and
head-rests of the South Seas are some of the proudest possessions
of our museums.
The more settled a tribe, the more time can be spent by its
members in beautifying the inner and outer walls of houses with
painted or carved ornaments. The totem-poles and house fronts
of the Alaskans, the African wooden and clay reliefs, and especially
the carved panels of Polynesian homes furnish outstanding examples
of such peculiar artistic perfection that modern sculptors have often
attempted in vain to imitate the workmanship, subtle colouring,
and exotic designs of these ornaments.
OF HOME AND HEARTH AND POTS AND PANS 41
Even the households of prehistoric man were furnished with
luxuries, including artistically shaped and ornamented spoons,
needles, stone knives, carving tools, drills, spindles, and planes.
Neolithic lamps are the prototypes of the oil-lamps of classic
Pompeii and Rome. As a purely aesthetic expression, male and
female and animal figures were carved or painted on walls during
the Aurignacian period ; statuettes of ivory graced some rooms.
Besides the earliest manifestations of great religious art preserved
in the magic animal paintings of the palaeolithic caves of Spain and
Southern France, we find equally numerous expressions of early
applied art in the ornamented containers, tools, combs, and dishes
of millenniums ago. Whole cultural stages of the Neolithic
period have been named after the ornamental designs found on
the pottery of its artisans.
Although not all living tribes have pottery or earthenware in
their kitchen corners, because some have not advanced far enough
to learn the secrets of their manufacture, all peoples use containers
of some kind, whether for gathering, cooking, or storage. The
storage of water is most important because it enables a people to
move about freely without being bound to a near-by spring or
river. But the very primitive have not readily found means
of storing water. When, for example, the girls and women of
Tierra del Fuego fill their primitive leather bags or bark pails
with water, they have to hasten homewards because the containers
leak so quickly. The Australians use natural rock pits or hollow
stones to store water. The birch-bark containers of the primitive
Labrador Indians are much more practical : sewn together and
caulked with resin, they are as waterproof as the Labrador canoes
which are similarly constructed. While travelling, these Indians
use folded water-cups of birch bark held together by wooden pins.
In the Malayan Archipelago hollow sections of cane and bamboo
are favourite water-containers. The Indians of Eastern Paraguay
store water in pumpkin shells and in the thick sections of the
tacua rusu bamboo, whose long stems they also use for portable
containers by removing the nodes and drilling several drinking-
holes into the cane. Parts of the same bamboo serve as very
practical kettles which can be used many times before the bottoms
become too charred. Coconut or gourd shells are widely used as
water-containers also. Another ancient type of water-container
is the sewn bag of animal skins found in India and in the Sahara.
Even the most primitive tribes are very resourceful in devising
household containers. For example, the Australians make orna-
mented wooden bowls and finely woven string bags to hold the
OIL LAMPS
(Above) PREHISTORIC STONE LAMP (Above) ROMAN CLAY LAMP
Magdalenian epoch
(Below) AFRICAN LAMP (Below) ESKIMO STONE LAMP
Uganda After Haberlandt
WATER-CONTAINER: COCONUTS DRINKING CUP, FOLDED FROM BIRCH
ON COCONUT STRINGS BARK (TRAVELLING MODEL)
Santa Cruz Islands Montagnais-Naskapi Indians
Museum of Ethnology, Cologne Collection Julius E. Lips
OF HOME AND HEARTH AND POTS AND PANS
43
fruits and plants they collect as food. Plates and platters of leaves,
shells, or wood can be found wherever a primitive family lives.
Ladles, which are older than spoons, are often artfully ornamented
and of exquisite shapes.
If we had a magic carpet to carry us safely to the isolated abodes
within the hidden corners of the world we should find among
primitive households scenes of peaceful comfort.
In the birch-bark or caribou-skin Indian tents which dot the
vast hunting-grounds in the interior of Labrador the smoke of
the home fire emerges through the smoke hole
at the apex of the conical structure. Inside,
broth boils in the caribou-belly * pot/ a beaver-
tail roasts on large wooden skewers, and the
pemmican mixture of bear grease and preserved
blueberries stands ready in a covered container
of ornamented birch bark. Round baskets of
the same pleasant brown- and white-coloured
pattern hold banok, the Indian bread. When
the wooden spoons are washed and the huskies
have retired to beds dug in the snow outside
the Naskapi family reclines on the balsam-
covered floor near precious bundles of mink
and marten, lynx, musk-rat, and silver fox
which will be brought down to the Hudson's
Bay Company post during the next spring to
pay for the following winter's supplies. The
fire is carefully tended ; the baby cradle of
appliqued leather swings slowly in the dim light of the northern
night ; hunting-charms dangle from the wall ; and the young
may dream of the venerable grandfather, the Bear, while their
father prays to the Man of the North that he may have mercy and
not send a new blizzard to cover the tracks of the game and the
trail to the traps.
Farther north, the Eskimos lie down to sleep under a dome of
snow. Reindeer, bear, and musk-ox skins neatly cover the snow
platform of the beds ; the hunting knives have been cleaned ; the
dogs, still munching on bones, lie down in the entrance passage ;
the seal-oil glows in the fifty-pound lamp of soap-stone Utkusik-
saligmiut that provides the cooking and the heating warmth, and
from which a whole people once took its name.
Peace is in the Indian huts of California. The flaked, smooth-
handled stone knife lies in the kitchen corner ; finely woven coiled
baskets stand ready for the gathering of the wild acorns ; alongside
COOKING POT
FROM THE
NICOBAR ISLANDS
Bark
After K. Weule
44
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
them are mortars of cotton-wood and pestles of stone and specimens
of the crudely coiled pottery preserved from former generations.
In the so-called * savage ' world housing is no problem ; rent-
demanding landlords and complaints from lodgers are unknown ;
kindness and gaiety, contentment and mutual assistance govern
life in contrast to the painful uncertainties of 'civilized' living.
Wherever we pay our visit among the primitives, we find a like
nearness to the gods and a like peace of mind.
The homes of the Paft* and the Chiripa, which lie in the jungles
of Eastern Paraguay, present with
their one-room combination of
parlour, kitchen, and bedroom an
equally appealing appearance.
Under the great hammock, made
of either red - dyed bromelia,
cotton, or cocoa fibres, which is
reserved for the master of the
house, lies the comfortable palm-
leaf mat for his wife. Low stools
fashioned in animal shapes stand
about. The parrot, an indis-
pensable family pet, chatters from
his stand. Typycha, the broom,
is never missing ; the pounded
earth floors are clean. A practical
shelf hangs from the roof to pro-
tect food supplies and kitchen
tools from ants and dogs. A sharp-bladed knife of tacuarembo
bark lies ready for the housewife.
Greater wealth is found in the typical home of the agricultural
regions of Africa, where iron tools, niultiformed covered baskets,
colourful woven mats, baked pottery, and scores of additional
gadgets make up the variety of material possessions.
The community house of the Pangwe is equipped with benches
all along its walls. Day and night the fire throws its light on the
drums and on the whetstone dangling from the roof and the great
hunting net used for the communal battues. Animal skulls, the
hunting trophies, decorate the room. The blacksmith's dug-out
workshop with his bellows and fire-fan are often part of the equip-
ment of the community house. In the family home three corners
are occupied by the sleeping benches, with the fireplace at the
narrow side of the room. Shelves for dishes and clothes-dryers are
conveniently arranged ; boards for drying and roasting peanuts
FIRE FAN
Pangwe, West Africa
After G. Tessmann
OF HOME AND HEARTH AND POTS AND PANS
45
are kept under a large wooden storage box which may be likened
to a pantry. The women's long baskets are hung on the walls, and
a three-legged round stool waits for the guest of honour. Grinding
slabs with pestles, fibre and wooden plates and bowls, ladles of all
shapes different for men and women calabashes, and brooms
complete the equipment of the well-organized home. When festive
occasions lure the dancers to the village square torches of raffia
produce a strong and romantic light.
PANGWE LADLES
West Africa
Calabash Ladle
Ladle for the Use
of Men
Pot Ladle
After G. Tessmann
In the beautiful Polynesian homes the harmony of the interior
decoration measures up to the splendour of the carved and painted
exteriors. On Ponape the spaces between the carved pillars are
walled with bamboo sticks so richly corded with multi-coloured
cocoa strings that the wood is completely hidden. The black,
red, and blue cords form intricate wall patterns, and are trimmed
with tassels and shells. Even the bamboo floor over the stone
foundation is covered with cocoa cordings. The fireplace is a
square in the middle of the room. Sleeping mats, calabashes
of polished coconut shells, nut graters, stone mortars and pestles,
and many other tools and pieces of household equipment are
tastefully arranged. Finely ornamented baskets contain shell
knives and tools of coral and fish-skin ; spears, paddles, orna-
mented clubs, and the women's weaving tools adorn the walls.
Not the smallest trace of refuse or dust is tolerated. Exquisite
curtains separate the sleeping - quarters from the living - room,
46 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
and the carved head-rests are of a variety of woods, often with
bamboo feet. The exquisitely shaped wooden bowls and dishes
are richly decorated, and the soft tapa cloth of curtains and clothing
shows hand-painted patterns. Fans and fly- whisks add further
touches of luxury.
The homes of the high cultures of the New and the Old Worlds
have absorbed, adopted, and transformed most of the possessions
and inventions of earlier times. They have improved on them
through precise methods of manufacture and professional specializa-
tion, which the primitive builder and craftsman could not develop.
Examples of sheer luxury are found in the remains of homes
older than the earliest records of our history. The excavations of
prehistoric sites at Abu Shahrein, the old Eridu, brought to light
carefully smoothed floors, and doors with hinges fashioned from
stones imported from distant regions. Deep cellars and round
windows can be traced back to the so-called * band-ceramic ' period
of the Neolithicum. The houses of the oldest Anau culture were
built of sun-dried bricks and were also equipped with hinged doors.
Wherever scientists uncover ruins of ancient temples or palaces
built at the dawn of history, astounding evidences of supreme
luxury are found, examples of a standard of living unknown to
modern civilization. In 1946 Russian scientists found in Southern
Siberia near the Chinese border the remnants of a Chinese palace
constructed before the birth of Christ : it was filled with treasures
of overwhelming perfection. The main hall of this palace of Kha-
kassia covers an area of about 140 square yards. Two kinds of tiles
cover the roof, on which there are round medallions with Chinese
inscriptions. The massive bronze door-handles display horned
genii. Clamps, bolts, bronze buckles, golden earrings, and jade
saucers were uncovered in the ruins. A furnace with a built-in
tubular heating system distributed warmth throughout the building.
Modern architects still try in vain to imitate the Roman method of
heating the floors of houses from beneath ; equally advanced heating
methods have been known in Korea for centuries. The magnifi-
cence of the excavations of the Babylonian Ur, to-day El Mukajjar
(many of the finest specimens recovered from these sites are
exhibited in the British Museum), make our modern artisans
wonder whether they will ever be able to reach the perfection
attained during the third millennium before Christ.
It is one of the ironies of history that the white man who adopted
the ideas of the primitives to adjust them to his needs has often
changed them so much that the aborigines of our time have difficulty
in recognizing their purpose. When a native of the Belgian Congo
OF HOME AND HEARTH AND POTS AND PANS
47
heard a white man whistle on a key he mistook the gadget for a
musical instrument and carved key-shaped flutes of ivory for his
tribesmen, so that they might share the latest European invention.
A crude white man's kitchen ladle, mended with an iron screw,
IVORY FLUTES, IMITATING EUROPEAN KEYS
Belgian Congo
Royal Conservatoire of Music, Brussels
impressed another Congo native so profoundly that he carved one
for himself just like it but in one piece, with the screw and the
mending so neatly imitated that even the lower tip of the screw
protruded from the * mended ' part.
ONE-PIECE IMITATION OF A WHITE MAN S MENDED LADLE
Congo
Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm
When something goes wrong with any of our household tools
we tend to act as if the object showed malice. It is by no means
a new idea that at times the things created by man to lighten his
daily drudgery get out of hand and that he may lose his control
over them. Similar was the fear of the sorcerer's apprentice who
stammered, " How can I get rid of the spirits I called up myself !"
Atomic power, that supreme triumph of modern science which
snatched from the Builder of the Universe the secret of His suns and
planets, has already reared up so threateningly that the whole
world fears the consequences of our enlightenment.
48 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
This ancient human fear of the potential dangers of the things
made by man himself induced an old Peruvian artist to paint a
pictorial story of " The Revolution of the Tools " on a vase of the
Protochimu epoch. The lower border of the design, depicting
waves and fish and seals, indicates that the rising of the objects
against their human exploiters took place at the sea-coast. Only
three human figures are shown, two of them prisoners in chains, the
third under attack. The rest of the characters are things, led by a
cudgel which threatens the man in the centre ; . the rebels are belts
and head-dresses, slings, catapults, helmets, purses, and pieces
THE REVOLUTION OF THE TOOLS
From a Clay Vase
Valle de Chicama, Peru
After W. Krickeberg
of jewellery. Now that their day of revolt against their employers
and suppressors has dawned, they are ready to take revenge against
his presumptuousness. All this is in accordance with an old
Quiche myth which predicts that the day will come when dogs
and chickens, pots and pans, and grinding slabs will make man taste
the hardships to which he habitually submits them the slabs will
grind their human inventors ; the pots will boil them ; the chicken
slaughter them ; the pans will roast them. This has happened
before, says the saga, and it will happen again.
Long, long ago the sun disappeared and the world was shrouded
in complete darkness for five long days. This was the signal for
the things to mobilize. The stones began to grind, the mortars and
pestles marched against their masters, and even the llamas attacked
their keepers in the stables as well as in the fields.
Look around you, all-knowing homo-sapiens. Be kind to the
things which serve you. Handle them gently they might resent
rough treatment. Appreciate the never-ceasing readiness of the
gadgets you devised to serve you.
CHAPTER TWO
Accessories of Allure
HERE COME THE JEZEBELS ! The preacher of a small New
York sect thus greeted the appearance of two visiting ladies
who, fond of occasional * on-the-spot ' investigations, had ferreted
out his * church' in the big city's
reservoir of human oddities. The
worshippers, following with their
eyes the accusing finger of their
prophet, watched the smartly
made-up though utterly discreet
intruders blush it was a most
embarrassing situation !
Later this little incident fur-
nished the material for a long
discussion, and the question arose :
why is it that some people associ-
ate the idea of ' sin ' with a well-
groomed woman ; why do they
ascribe low character to a " female
who paints her face " ? Is the idea
of enhancing artificially the charms
of nature really so alien to the
* unspoiled ' human mind ?
It was not so some ten thousand
years ago, and it is not to-day in
many sectors of the world where
peoples who never heard the term
* cosmetics ' still follow the ancient
rules of allure for the sake of aesthetic joy and for hygienic and
spiritual reasons. When it comes to the display of taste ' savages '
have a very definite notion of what they consider attractive and
what not, and they miss no opportunity to express their taste
freely. Men and women alike take part in the general effort to
give to their bodies and their clothing the touch of beauty ; and
while man in modern civilization has been forced into a subdued
attitude as far as his vanity is concerned, his brethren of the
wilderness openly compete with the charms of the fair sex and
often even surpass them.
While in Western civilization the variations of taste are extremely
49
FAVOURED WIFE OF CONGO
RULER
American Museum of Natural
History, New York
50 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
numerous, these variations are even more pronounced among the
different races and tribes of primitive peoples who set for them-
selves their own standards of attractiveness and are not easily
persuaded to copy their neighbours' fads.
An insight into the prerequisites of attractiveness as conceived
by, for instance, the Maori, was furnished by Elsdon Best, who
states that, in order to be considered good-looking, a girl has to
have " shapely legs with a well-poised body, a comely junction of
the trunk with the buttocks, and a straight-legged, erect carriage " ;
while male beauty, according to the Maori women, consists of
" a stalwart, mature aspect, with well-shaped body, handsome
face not too wide, large eyes that look with a mild expression
upon man." In addition, such an Adonis must be " kind, with
shapely loins." This is not too far from our own, the Greek
ideal of beauty. In contrast to this, the Koreans, a high-cultured
people, feel differently, especially concerning * Greek '-shaped
faces, and they ran away in horror when the Second World War
brought them in contact with their liberators, the American soldiers,
who, to them, were " giants with big noses." Many North
American Indians, like the Hopi, expect a beautiful girl to whiten
her face with corn-meal and to wear her hair in butterfly whorls.
There is nothing vague about such conceptions, which all testify
to the fact that at all levels of culture man created his own laws
of beauty. But beyond such detailed specifications we notice
among the children of nature one point on which everybody seems
to agree : the fact that cleanliness is the basis of all good looks.
There is no well-bred savage who would abuse the iron rules of
bodily hygiene. The admonition, " You wash like a white man ! "
(who often, while living among ' primitives/ cleans merely his face
and hands) is, indeed, one of the worst insults a savage can hurl
against any of his tribesmen.
Whoever has lived among primitive tribes will report on their
great neatness. O'Connell, who shared the life of the natives of
Ponape for a long time, stresses this point by saying that they
bathe two or three times a day and that anyone who neglects this
healthy custom " loses his social standing. He will be expulsed
and left in shame." Equally strict are the Creek Indians in their
observance of at least a daily bath in a river (and four rolls in the
snow during winter). How strongly this custom prevailed among
the Indians was emphasized by the old explorer Adair, who re-
marks : " The neglect of this bath hath been deemed so heinous a
crime, that they have raked the legs and arms of the delinquent
with snake's teeth."
ACCESSORIES OF ALLURE 51
Numerous reports and testimonies of explorers emphasize this
happy-to-be-clean attitude of savage peoples wherever water
is available. But even where water is scarce, as, for instance,
in the Sahara Desert, the natives take care of the proper cleansing
of their bodies by subjecting themselves to the hygienic effects of
the desert sands. In the arctic and subarctic regions of the globe,
where an extremely cold climate makes it difficult to clean the body,
primitive man invented the steam bath. For this special purpose
they construct bath-houses in which stones are first heated and water
poured upon them to produce the steam. After reclining in the
WORK STOOL FOR COCONUT SCRAPING
With cardium shell used as scraper
Marken Islands
After Parkinson
dense steam the bathers often finish up with a quick jump into the
cold running water of their creeks and rivers. Sometimes such a
' Turkish ' bath can accommodate many persons, while in other
instances small cabins for one or two steam bathers are preferred.
Even sick people undergo this cure in the hope of getting rid of
their fever, often with the magic assistance of the medicine-man's
songs and prayers. The modern Scandinavian sportsmen whose
countries have preserved the ancient custom of this type of steam
bathing ascribe much of their physical vigour to its beneficial effects.
The frequent exposure of the skin to hot steam and cold water
and, in tropical climates, to the surging rays of the sun necessitated
a regular care of the exposed parts of the human body. Conse-
quently, there is practically no tribe on earth whose members
would not make use of fats and oils and greases to smooth, cleanse,
and lubricate their skins. The calabash or coconut-shell oil-pot
is, therefore, the regular stand-by for both sexes, who rub them-
selves with * cold cream * as often as they can. Some African
52 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
tribes use the oil of the raffia palm-tree exclusively for beauty
purposes, since most insects are allergic to it. In the South Seas
the most widespread provider of greasy lotions is the cocoa palm,
which to-day furnishes the skin preparations of our own fashionable
ladies with their most effective ingredient. Ingenious methods are
applied by the natives to split and grate the coconut with the help of
adequate tools. Some submit the minced substance to a process
of fermentation under the sun, by which the oil is segregated and can
easily be removed for further use in cosmetic blendings.
Such mixtures, with palm oil, castor oil, lard grease, or even
butter as their basic ingredients, may contain redwood, ginger-
root, herbs, or metallic powders, most of which have proved their
protective qualities not only against sunburn or insect bites but
also, as many explorers indicate, against the influences of cold
weather and rough winds. These pastes may cover parts of the
skin or even the entire body, and it has been reliably reported that
this original protection of the skin of many tribes has been far
more beneficial to the health of its users than the cheap cotton
garments which were later forced upon the natives by shrewd
4 civilised ' merchants.
The mixture of colour and greases to produce a cosmetic and
hygenic stand-by is very widespread, especially among Australian
and African tribes, who enjoy its double function as a remedy and as
a decorative medium.
Colour plus grease ? Well, isn't this the correct description also
of all the grease paints found in our own boudoirs and our theatrical
dressing-rooms? Indeed, this brings us right back to * the Jezebels/
The art of ' making up ' with grease paint can by no means be
attributed to * modern decadence ' or to the frivolous whims of
the moment. Long before any records of written history were
started men and women alike were conscious of the attractiveness of
selected colours blended with the human skin ; and they knew
how to find, to recognize, and to prepare them for their own use
as cosmetic aids. Even the very strict territorial laws of certain
tribes who allow no trespassing include occasionally one concession :
that neighbouring or even foreign tribes may cross the protected
tribal land on their excursions to obtain the * vital * colours w r hich
may be found only at one or more far-away places.
The cave-man and his cave-woman went out in search of these
colours, as remains of ice-age colour mines prove. They had
their own formulas for the blending of the colours with different
greasy substances for their * dressing- table,' exactly as do to-day's
children of the wilderness. The discoveries of the palaeolithic sites
ACCESSORIES OF ALLURE 53
have preserved these cosmetic colours of the ice age, ready- mixed
in ornamented bone or slate containers, with palettes and pestles
for their handling. Practically all former homesteads of palaeolithic
man show abundant supplies of these cosmetics ; and even the dead
in their graves were provided with generous quantities of grease-
blended colours, to be taken along on the long journey to the land
of the departed. In later periods of human history, from the
Neolithic Age on, these evidences of early vanity became extremely
numerous ; and more surprising even than their abundance is the
variety of shades. Manuel Dechelette's analyses of the prehistoric
deposits reveal seventeen different colours, with white (marly
limestone), black (charcoal and manganese ores), and the ochre scale,
from red and orange to the lightest yellow, as the favourites.
PALETTE FOR PREPARATION OF GREASE PAINT
West African
Museum of Ethnology, Cologne
These colours and their raw materials correspond exactly to
those used in many primitive cultures of our days. The beauti-
fully carved masks of the Gazelle Peninsula and other Melanesian
regions show predominantly the three colours of red, white, and
black, with some occasional touches of blue and green obtained
from vegetal substances. Other shadings and mixtures have been
added by other tribes, but all attribute special significance or give
definite preference to one colour or the other.
However, the specific symbolic significance attributed by us
to certain colours may have entirely different meaning to primitive
peoples. Thus, white is, to the Pangwe, by no means the colour
of purity but, on the contrary, the colour of evil, as evidenced by its
importance in the ' bad ' lunar rites ; but at the same time it is
regarded as a most beautiful colour. It is followed in preference
by black, " the colour of the night and of all that is disagreeable,
frightening, and horrible/' while the joyous red symbolizes all the
good things of life. These tribes also distinguish lilac as the colour
of the dead ; all plants with lavender blooms contain the word
54 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
kun or bokun (soul) in their native names ; and the bluish shadows
of the trees mark them as the favourite abode of the departed.
Beauty is often identified with the ' demonic ' white. They show
no admiration for the plumage of their magnificently multicoloured
birds, but the plain white heron, Bubulcus ibis, excites them by its
" overwhelming beauty." In contrast to this, the sombre black
is, to the Atxuabo of Portuguese East Africa, " the colour of joy/'
Often the vocabularies of primitive peoples show, by their terms
for colours, the variety of shades they distinguish. The Chama
of eastern Peru know yellow, * blue-and-green ' (one word), purple,
and * banana-orange ' ; while the Sipaia Indians have individual
expressions for red, yellow, orange, dark blue to dark green, light
blue and light green, brown, grey, black, and white.
The habit of attributing symbolic meanings to certain colours has
entered the religious and profane conceptions of all high cultures,
including our own. In the ancient Aztec codices the four quarters
of the globe were indicated by individual colours, with red for the
East, blue for the West, yellow for the North, and green for the
South ; while ancient Chinese and Iranians assigned blue to the
East, red to the South, white to the West, and black to the North.
The demons in the Lama temples of Tibet are always red ; most
of the Tibetan gods sit on red lotus lilies, with the white flower
reserved for Chanrasig, the highest Boddhisatva, and the blue for
Tara, the ' madonna ' of Lamaism. Even each element has there
its own symbolic colour : wood is green, fire is red, the earth is
yellow, iron is white, and the water is blue. Every syllable of their
famed prayer, the OM MANI PADME HUM (" O you jewel in the
lotus, amen ! "), has its own colouring. OM, symbolizing the skies,
is white ; MA, symbolizing the word of the asuras, is blue ; Ni,
symbolizing the world of man, is yellow ; PAD, symbolizing the
animal world, is green ; ME, symbolizing the world of the pretas,
is red ; with the concluding holy HUM, which bars the gates to the
hells, conceived as black.
Numerous are the analogies in other high cultures like Egypt,
India, and China. The same applies to the colour symbolism of
our Christian ritual with the holiday or mourning decoration of
the churches in red, white, green, purple, black, etc., and the
carefully prescribed colourful regalia of the members of the Catholic
clergy. And even in our daily figures of speech we use colour
symbolisms, although of different content, when we speak of * the
green-eyed monster/ 'a blue Monday/ * the reds/ or * clad in
the colour of innocence/ while our governments publish * blue
books/ ' white papers,' and * black lists/
ACCESSORIES OF ALLURE 55
The spectrum of primitive man is, as we saw, not so manifold,
but he certainly knows how to make the most of his favourite
colours. It was reported in early times the American Indians
painted their skins red, and consequently they were called * red-
skins ' by the old pale-faces. This custom often included even
babies and infants. Red and black minerals used for the pig-
ments were often carried about in small painted deerskin pouches.
The Nor-Papua of New Guinea cherish the red kekevak colour,
which they burn and mix with coconut oil to use always on their
bodies. For face, arms, and legs they prefer a yellow earth from
the Sepik ; for breast and thighs a white colour, which they gain
from near a sulphur spring, is fashionable.
Tradition may prescribe different colour fashions for the two
sexes, and even different ways of applying the paint. This is
the case among the Miskito and Sumu Indians of the Atlantic
side of Honduras and Nicaragua, whose women choose for their
fancy patterns paint from the red seeds of Eixa orellana L. y a
shrub or small tree, while the men do not bother with intricate
designs but simply cover all exposed parts of their physique with
a black melted gum over which they apply a coat of turpentine.
Red is also the favourite colour of the eastern Bolivian Tirinie women
who paint their entire faces, with the exception of nose and eyelids,
with vivid urucu, which the Neoze women of the same region merely
use on cheeks and forehead. The Papagonians mix their black,
red, and white earth colours with marrow and apply them thickly
to their bodies * as a protection from the surging wind ' ; and the
South African Bantu, like many Australian aborigines, use fat salves
mixed with ochre. African shepherd peoples often use cow
droppings or even the urine of cows as a blending material for their
paints ; their belief in the hygienic qualities of the latter goes so
far that many of them hurry to wash their hands in the warm
jet when it appears under a cow, and insist on using it as an
eyewash.
Again and again we find an ardent preference for red, manifold
as its raw materials may be. The Montagnais-Naskapi Indians,
who refrain from using this beloved shade on their skin, nevertheless
declared during my visit in Labrador that no colour on earth could
be compared with the magnificence of red, which they mine as
vermilion for the decoration of their tools, canoes and clothing.
Many high cultures have maintained this ancient preference.
The Hindu women of to-day still dot their foreheads with red
hum kum powder, and the Mohammedan world depends largely
on the use of Lawsonia inermis, the leaves and stems of the henna
50 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
shrub, to achieve red colour accents as an expression of good
grooming, beauty, and happiness.
That allegedly very modern accessory of allure the lipstick,
PREHISTORIC ALLURE
Palaeolithic
Figure from
the Grottoes
of Lespugue,
Haute Garonne,
France
After Le Comte
de St Pc'rier
Dancing Women
Rock Painting from Cogul, Spain
The " Venus of
Willendorf"
Ice-age Figure
of Carved
Limestone
Na turhistorisches
Staatsmuseum,
Vienna
which also is red actually dates back to the ice age. Specimens
of * convenient size ' and pointed at the top have been found in
many prehistoric caves. For countless ages lipsticks have served
to deepen the colour of women's * rose lips/
From the earliest times geometrical patterns served to accentuate
even more the favourite colours and the taste of their wearers.
ACCESSORIES OF ALLURE 57
Such painted designs may or may not indicate special qualities
like membership in a particular tribe, the coming of age, social
standing, bravery, and the like. Even the bones of the dead are
occasionally exhumed and decorated with intricate ornamentations,
and many uncovered prehistoric manifestations of plastic art, like,
for instance, the famed " Venus of Willendorf," still show signs of
painted patterns in red. That this habit prevailed also during
classic times is evidenced by the ornamented arms of the Phrygian
woman with child on a vase in the British Museum and by the report
TATTOOED CHOROTI SCAR-TATTOO FACIAL PAINTING
GIRL Yao, East Africa Thompson Indians
Gran Chaco
After R. Karsten After K. Weule After J. A. Teh
of Ammianus Mercellinus (A.D. 330-400) on the Agathyrsians, who
painted body and hair in blue.
The striking effect of painted patterns on the human skin inspired
the idea of frightening the enemy with this * psychological * weapon.
Caesar was duly impressed by the blue war paint of the Britannians,
which gave them a ' horrible ' appearance (" Omnes vero se Britanni
vitro inficiunt, quod cseruleum efficit colorem, atque hoc horribiliores
sunt in pugna aspectu ") ; and Tacitus saw " ghost armies " of
painted Germanic Marians, whose later successors were the modern
black-faced commandos of the Second World War.
Paint and pattern may, among primitive tribes, occasionally
be outlined by additional glued-on materials which, following the
principal design, give it a more plastic appearance. The Central
and Northern Australian natives add such touches in white feather-
down to the red and black circular symbols of their skin paint to
achieve a highly original effect. Certain North American Indian
bands use corn meal and seeds for similar adornments.
The desire to give a more lasting quality to the fully applied
58 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
patterns in a fanciful manner led to the invention of clay stamps or
pintaderas, as the Aztecs called them, with whose help a fixed pattern
could be printed on the desired spot. These, too, were known
already during the ice age. To-day the Gran Chaco tribes use
them ; so do the Dayak of Borneo, who stamp their favourite
ornaments on their skins and sometimes use the pattern thus
acquired as an outline for their tattoos.
The painted pattern, however, washed off
easily and faded. This disadvantage inspired
the birth of another idea : to find a means of
making the chosen design permanent. The
result was the tattoo a custom of world-wide
distribution. Colour is not always added to
emphasize the incisions and punctuations that
make the pattern ; if none is used we speak of
a " scar tattoo " of the type used in the old
Tasmanian culture. To-day its application is
most frequent in another part of the world,
the African continent.
Both sexes of the Banda a Ubangi band
prefer symmetrically arranged incisions in the
skin of breast, abdomen, back, and arms. The
Pangwe outline with soot the desired pattern
on their skins, sculpture it with a knife, and
rub the wounds with burnt resin, thus decora-
ting their entire bodies with ' lovely' scars.
This beautification is considered indecent on
the upper thighs, and the Jaunde women who
cannot refrain from decorating these, too, are
considered of low morals. The natives of
Khartoum tattoo their small babies with the
tribal crest by incising the identification ornament in their cheeks.
The wounds are rubbed with a mixture of saltpetre, ashes, and
selected herbs. After a few days the incisions swell to coil shape
and remain as broad scars, the characteristic mark of the Sudanese.
The scar tattoo may or may not be used in combination with the
tattooed colour ornament. On account of its more delicate execu-
tion the latter allows finer lines, more intricate designs, and a more
precise and symmetrical arrangement. The best results in this
respect have been reached by the natives of the South Seas and,
among them, especially the Maori of New Zealand, whose magnifi-
cent spiral ornaments give permanent attractiveness even to the
artistically preserved and reverently worshipped heads of their
WEST AFRICAN
HAIR-STYLE AND
TATTOO
Wood Carving
Museum of
Ethnology , Cologne
ACCESSORIES OF ALLURE 59
dead. The carved figures in which the Maori culture is so rich
commemorate these characteristic tattoos, sometimes in huge
dimensions and all over their unclad bodies. Even a Madonna
carved by baptized Maori for their church shows these ancient
patterns all over her unclothed body. This typical Maori tattoo,
which expresses social rank and membership in a band thereby
specified, is an object of sincere pride even to the oldest dignitaries,
who see their own individualities thus expressed and glorified.
The experience of a white artist has shown that even the most
realistic portrait of a Maori chieftain was sneered at by its model
who, with a superior attitude, drew his facial tattoo pattern in the
sand to explain to the white man : " This is what I am. What
you have drawn there is of no meaning."
The British sailor O'Connell, who became the son-in-law of a
Ponape chieftain, had to undergo upon his acceptance into the
noble family the painful procedure of having his entire body richly
tattooed with fancy ornaments, which he later learned to identify as
the names of the departed chieftains and nobles of the tribe. For
a whole week two female artists handled the thorn-studded tattoo
boards, hitting him neatly at the previously outlined spots and
nursing his wounds with coal and oil.
Many North American Indian tribes also indulged in the adorning
art of tattooing, be it for women alone as with the Tubatulabal and
Kamia, or for both sexes, as in south-east Alaska.
This custom has infiltrated the high cultures. The vertical lines
marking chests and brows on the ancient figures on the bronze
plates of Benin are tattoos. The invaders of modern Japan were
stunned by the sight of the bodies of men and women who were
completely covered with tattooed images of gods and men, quota-
tions from the classics, scenes from plays, flowers, and animals.
In our Western civilization the tattoo has lost its original social and
artistic significance and has been degraded to vulgarity, to be used
merely by adventurous sea-dogs, show people, and criminals.
The more parts of the body these ' artistic ' painting and tattooing
operations involve, the more it becomes necessary to remove the
body hair. Many tribes adhere, in addition, to the aesthetic con-
ception that a complete depilation of all but the hair of the head is
a ' must J for a well-bred person. Consequently we find a great
variety of methods of getting rid of unwanted hair, which may be
plucked out with shells (" quick as with a Christmas goose," says
O'Connell), or with the help of wooden sticks, with metal pincers,
or simply with the finger-nails. This custom has become part of
the Hindu and Mohammedan religious requirements.
60 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
Even facial hair may be considered objectionable. Indians often
consider any trace of beard as distasteful, and check its growth by
rubbing their chins with wood ashes. Since nature has made the
whole race nearly beardless anyway many tribes just remove their
eyebrows, hair by hair, to make their faces * clean/ The plucking
or shaving of the hair-line to achieve the effect of a higher forehead
is practised by Papuas and Indians, and is also known in Africa.
The regard of the beard as an asset or an obstacle to male hand-
someness and the change of beard fashions through the ages
belong to the most fascinating chapters of cultural history. When
we consider the fact that modern historical study divides beards
into fifteen standard types we can well imagine the multitude of
pre-civilized forms with all their side-line ramifications. From the
full beard of the Australians, the corkscrew goatee of many Papuas,
and the ' Assyrian ' African forms to the * naked ' faces of the
Indians there is an immense multitude of varieties. As for civilized
man, the archaeological facts seem to prove that the oldest fashions
of classical times favoured the clean-shaven face.
The earliest evidence of antique beards appears, according to
Motefindt, towards the end of the Cretan- Mycenaean period. The
most interesting form of beard is the semicircular fringe which
frames the otherwise clean-shaven face. It is the * classical '
beard which we know from the geometrical vases of the Athenian
cemetery of the post-Mycenaean period and from the seventh-
century bronze relief of Olympia. It appears also on the reliefs of
the temple of Assos, and is worn by Zeus and his adorants (Acropolis
of Athens). How persistently this fashion survived through the
centuries is evidenced by a miniature of King Edgar of England,
dated A.D. 966, which shows him sporting the fringe beard. Exactly
the same type of beard is worn by to-day's natives of southern
Arabia, the Somali coast, the Singhalese of Ceylon, and in eleven
regions of Oceania. Representations of the Aztec gods, Quezalcoatl
and Tecciztecatl, show them with the shaven upper lip and this
age-old fringe around their chins. In the cultural region of the
Mediterranean, from about A.D. 500 on, this was supplemented by
the fashion of the full beard, which replaced it almost completely
about one hundred years later.
Motefindt, who has given much thought to this attribute of
masculine attractiveness, distinguishes three clearly defined phases
of this fashion the first and oldest when the fringe-beard was the
characteristic feature of one Semitic tribe. As soon as the peoples
of the Near East came into contact with the Semitic culture this
type of beard became fashionable among them. The second phase
ACCESSORIES OF ALLURE
6l
was entered one thousand years later, when the fringe was no longer
restricted to Semitic tribes but had become common among all
peoples of the Near East. The Egyptians of the eighteenth and
nineteenth dynasties identified any man with this type of beard as
a native of the Near East. Only during the third phase did it
appear detached from any ethnic group, freely following the fads
of fashion. It is still found to-day not
only among many tribes ot primitive
cultures but also among European fisher-
men and peasants.
There exists hardly one single element
among the accessories of human allure
which cannot be traced back to the dawn
of culture ; and many of the fashions
which we favour to-day throw light upon
our state of mind which in some way or
other is spiritually connected with these
expressions of our external appearance.
This is especially true of feminine hair-
styles. Legion indeed are the shapes
of coiffures preferred by the different
peoples through the ages of unwritten
and of written history, and when a new
fad makes its triumphant debut the
historically schooled student of the
attributes of human vanity can in many
cases interpret it as the evidence of a
cultural change as well.
No need to say that climate and form
of economic living conditions play a decisive role in these changes.
An elaborate coiffure requires time and a tendency toward com-
placency, as are provided by the agricultural form of economics,
while hunters and food gatherers, with their unstable form of
existence, can hardly afford to waste many hours on a com-
plicated arrangement of their hair. Although we can roughly
distinguish between three principal types of hair : short and
kinky (Pygmies and Negroid races) ; wavy and of medium length
(Australians, Veddas, and whites), straight and long (Mongolian
races), these technical distinctions are so general that they cannot
do justice to the multitude of actual varieties.
A better general picture is provided when we consider the cultural
age of the different ethnic groups. Among the Australians, who
can be considered very close to the cradle of earliest mankind,
WEST AFRICAN HELMET 5
COIFFURE
After Kramer
62
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
we find hardly any artistic hair-styles. If we look for the extra-
ordinary, we have to visit the agricultural tribes of West Africa.
Compared with their coiffures, the hair fashions at the court of Marie
Antoinette can be called drab and unimaginative. Among them,
a respectable coiffure is a masterpiece of sculpture, built to last for
months and moulded with the aid of clay, animal fat, and similar
ingredients. Glass beads, cowrie shells, brass ornaments, buttons,
and feathers provide the last touch
to these monuments, which are
often held in place by structures
of leaf ribs, palm marrow, moss
coils, etc. The resulting master-
pieces, whose completion may take
months, are so artful that they give
the impression of a sturdy hat or
helmet, which they sometimes actu-
ally are. Often their hair fashions
are depicted on specimens of their
plastic art long after the fashions
themselves have changed and even
after a tribe has been extinguished.
This provides the white student with
a history of the coiffures of West
Africa, helping him in the dating of
a work of art. Men and women
of these peoples sometimes prefer
artful wigs to the real thing ; these
wigs being so exquisitely sculptured
and so firmly glued to the head that
only a very close inspection can reveal the difference. Tessmann
counted in one tribe twenty-five different types of hair-styles and
wigs, all distinguished by individual names. The Mangbetu of
the northern Congo have a special fondness for long, narrow hind-
heads (a shape artificially created by deformations of the skull from
early childhood on) ; and they accentuate even more this effect of
their oblong head shapes by hair-styles of a swept-back type.
Many Papua men build their coiffures with equal over-emphasis
on ' architectonic ' quaintness, but since these hair-styles often'
have another task, namely to support the gigantic masks worn
during their sacred dances, vanity alone would not be a proper
explanation of this custom. Strangely enough, their women and
children often cut their hair short and leave it to the men to wear,
in the true sense of the word, their burden. The Polynesian hair-
CAMEROONS COIFFURE
Sculptured with cow droppings
After H. Plischke
ACCESSORIES OF ALLURE 63
styles are, in general, much simpler, and mostly feature merely a
small chignon. The reason is that these people are so fond of
their art of tattooing that they even shave parts of their hair to
furnish further opportunities for the application of their favourite
adornment.
Many Indians of North and South America cut their hair fairly
short, with occasional bangs over their foreheads. Some tribes,
like the Apache, feature rolls and coils or broad locks in the centre
of the head, while the Eskimo, who like to wear their straight tresses
in simple open fashion, use an occasional chignon.
As we see from these examples, our modern civilization has taken
over almost all hair-styles of former times during the different
waves of fashion, with the exception of
certain exaggerated West African styles.
In the other high cultures the rigid re-
ligious laws have often stopped the accept-
ance of a fashion, as, for instance, the short
bob, which is taboo among Mohammedan
women and will never be accepted by
Hindu beauties, to whom cut hair is the
outer mark of the sorrowful state of HAIR-STYLE OF MARRIED
widowhood. ZULU WOMEN
When our ladies go to the beauty After Carl von Hoffman
parlour to get a henna rinse they by no
means benefit by an invention of modern sophistication, because
the art of dyeing one's hair is as old as mankind itself. The
custom among the North American Kamia Indians of deepening
the black colour of their hair by rinsing it in " a boiled decoction
of black gum from the bark of the mesquite tree " is an isolated
instance, because the desire to bleach or lighten the hair colour is
much more prevalent. Many Polynesian tribes bleach their frizzy
hair with the help of lye or lime, which results in a reddish or
yellowish effect. Not satisfied with this, they add a powder of
ochreous earth to their coiffure, which contrasts strangely with their
deep brown skins. This practice is so common that the explorer
Ross states surprisedly that the Mount Hagen tribes of New
Guinea " never bleach or colour " their hair. The British scientist
Balfour builds an interesting theory on the habit of the Solomon
Islanders of dyeing their hair red with ochre. Explaining the huge
red cylinders of stone which crown the mystical colossal statues of
Easter Island as sculptured ' red hair/ he tries to clear up the much-
discussed question of the origin of the extinct original population
whose members came, as he claims, from the Solomons to build on
64 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
Easter Island those gigantic monoliths in their own image, with an
accent on the ruddy colour of their bleached hair.
That this world-wide grooming of the human hair necessitated
the invention of convenient gadgets to comb or brush it is obvious.
Bone combs have been found in the palaeolithic graves, and even
the very primitive Fuegians use combs fashioned of toothed jaw-
bones of the dolphin. The shapes of fibre brushes and wooden
and bamboo combs used by other primitive tribes are myriad. The
WEST AFRICAN COMBS
After G. Tessmann
POLYNESIAN COMB
Samoa
Museum of Ethnology,
Cologne
most popular form is a flat bundle of wood or bamboo splinters or
wisps of stiff grass, bound together to form a convenient handle.
Hairpins in the most varied shapes were known in all ages.
The desire and the possibilities of shampooing one's hair are,
naturally, dependent upon the permanence of the coiffure and the
beauty aids available. Water-loving people like the Polynesians
wash their hair frequently while swimming. Many American
Indians preferred regular shampoos with yucca decoctions or
similar plant products. The African coiffures are not so suited for
this type of cleansing treatment. But the continuous greasing of
the hair, the occasional addition of clay, and the usage of such
* lotions * as cow urine are effective remedies against dirt and
unpleasant little insects.
ACCESSORIES OF ALLURE 65
One might assume that the great accent on a perfect appearance
of the * crowning glory ' might have promoted the early invention
of equally fancy bonnets or ' picture hats.' This, however, is not
the case. Despite the rays of the tropical sun, most primitive
tribes do not feel the need for hats, and where they appear they have
a social or magic significance which is not proportionate to their
utility value. The elaborate head-coverings of many African
chieftains are plainly tokens of dignity (like, by the way, the parasol,
which among primitives is a sign of nobility or
chieftainship). This conception has lingered
on to this day, from the rank-proclaiming hats
of the Chinese bureaucracy to the caps of
certain military and naval officers with the
amount of gold braid increasing with the
rank. The birettas and tiaras of the Catholic
clergy are another example.
In cold climates, where the temperature
forces the wearing of caps, parkas, and the
like, head-coverings are of simple utilitarian
shapes ; but to the man of the tropics a hat
is the forerunner of a crown. One of the great
' magical ' possessions of the white invader in
Africa was his hat or helmet, which symbolized
to the natives his position as a ruler.
Among some tribes, especially of the South Affixed to the hair
Seas, a hat is bestowed upon the young boy by glue
when he comes of age as a symbol of the Kabiri, Papua, New
manhood which he has to earn under hard Guinea
tests of his courage. The Kabiri of New A f ter A > H - Haddon
Guinea call this hat a diba. It is of conical
shape, covered with lime and decorated with feathers or flowers.
The men glue it to the head and do not remove it even during
sleep. The Mount Hagen tribes, also of New Guinea, allow their
young men to wear a hat " as soon as a beard appears on their chin "
they call it woinia or kan ku. The men of a neighbouring tribe,
the Murik, are entitled to wear a hat only after their initiation ;
O'Connell saw this in Ponape. There are similar parallels in an
entirely different part of the globe : among the Indians of the
north-west coast of Alaska, where such a hat was known as a " cloud
hat."
This strange, conical head-covering has played a mystical role
throughout the ages. At some point it seems to have lost its
meaning of rank and dignity and to have acquired a sombre or
3
MAN S CONICAL
CAP, 'DIBA*
66 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
demonic significance : it became the magician's hat of the Middle
Ages, the mark of witches and evil ghosts. In the eleventh century
its wear was decreed as obligatory to the Jews of Europe, the
prescribed colour being yellow, and Saxon coins of the year 1444
(the so-called * Jew pennies ') show a bearded man wearing such a
hat. Le Sage lets his Gil Bias witness a public burning at Toledo
of the victims of the Spanish Inquisition who wore " so-called
carochas, t.e., conical-shaped high hats of cardboard, covered with
the painting of flames and demonic figures. " This ancient hat
is still to-day the trade-mark of Halloween witches and circus
magicians, and has reached its lowest degree of dignity in the
* dunce hats ' worn in shame by unruly schoolchildren. Its
long and colourful history is another proof of the fact that the
tracing of the origin of ancient things often leads to fascinating
revelations.
The differences in the opinions of different peoples about the
same object are always interesting ; and the heterogeneous tastes
are often amazing. Take, for instance, our belief that white teeth
are an asset to attractiveness. Not all peoples think so. But
whatever their aesthetic ideal, there is no tribe whose members do
not try to reach it.
Closest to our own ideas comes the desire to have white, clean
teeth. The Nuer use ashes and cow drops in their daily efforts to
achieve this desirable whiteness. The Pangwe are so fond of their
teeth that they carry their tooth-brushes around in the shape of
brass-trimmed walking-sticks whose upper end is split into many
bristle-like spikes. Whenever the contemplative stroller feels the
urge, he stops to give his teeth the ' once-over/
In complete contrast to this, the Dusun (Borneo) ideal of an
alluring mouth must display black teeth. The skilful method
applied to reach this goal has been described by the explorer Staal,
who stresses the fact that the dyeing procedure is so sacred that it
may take place only before the great devils' feast of Meginakan.
Here follows the recipe : " Quava leaves are pounded and mixed
with ashes of some wood (gombah), and the mixture smeared on the
teeth. A strip of banana leaf is folded and laid on the teeth and
pressed down to prevent the ' paint ' from being soaked off. . . .
They keep this on for about forty hours. Then the skin of a
creeper (timbahung) is pounded and mixed with lime ; the banana
bandage is taken away and this new mixture rubbed on. When
dry they keep black. " These people also like to * behead ' their
teeth by filing them down with a rough stone. Despite this practice
they never suffer from toothache, the same author affirms.
ACCESSORIES OF ALLURE 67
" Though the dental lies bare and remains to rot ... all chew the
ririh, and this is clearly a preventive of toothache."
This habit is one of the many forms of tooth mutilations practised
for various reasons by many primitive tribes. Often it is part of
the initiation ceremonies and kindred to the conception of the dying
moon. It may mark the fact that a person has come of age. Some
tribes, like the Nuer, who break their six- to seven-year-olds' lower
incisors, explain this with the remark : " We do this to demonstrate
by it the difference between man and beast." Some merely file
the front teeth into fancy spikes, which necessitates the use of a
chisel. Among the south-east Australian Yuin this ritual of
chiselling off part of their young men's teeth is performed by a
mystically garbed old member of the tribe who is supposed to be
the Supreme Being ; and when he begins to use his wooden chisel
none of his young victims dares to betray the slightest sign of pain.
Tessman describes the tooth beautification method of the Pangwe :
" The patient, lying on his back, bites firmly into a wooden spool.
The dental artist sets a small iron chisel on the tooth and, using a
piece of wood for a hammer, hits off the undesired parts splinter
by splinter." Other original reasons are given for this custom, as
by the Akamba, who told Lindblom ; " We deform our teeth
because this enables us to spit nicely [artistically]." A West Afrcian
Machako man told him a little story which the Swedish scientist
wrote down just as he heard it :
Some girls went away to get their teeth chipped. They were
chipped. And one girl had six teeth chipped and two taken out.
And the girls were three in number, and one of them had got her
teeth chipped very beautifully. Then they said : " Let us see who
has been chipped best and who has got her teeth best taken out ! "
They said : " Let us spit ! " They spat. The one that had her
teeth well chipped spat much farther than the rest. Then they
became excited with envy, and threw her in the water, and she died.
The story is finished.
Another odd dental mutilation is the incrustation of the teeth
with precious stones and metals, mostly practised by peoples who
belong to the high cultures. The Dayak and Batak drill holes into
their front teeth, and close them again with small disks of brass,
gold, or mother-of-pearl. The Maya of Yucatan used gold or
precious stones in a similar way ; and the natives of Ecuador and
India of to-day boast of the same fashion. But whatever the final
effect, this type of beautification is nevertheless a mutilation.
However, dental mutilations are by no means the strangest.
Best known perhaps is the custom of many primitives of piercing
68
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
the septum of their noses for reasons of vanity. First a leaf of
grass is introduced, to be later replaced by thicker and larger objects,
until feather-quills, bones, wooden or metallic objects can be
introduced into the hole, to the wearer's joy. Many Australians
(Left) SHELL ORNAMENT WITH
ENGRAVINGS INFILLED WITH
RED OCHRE
Wyndham, North-west Australia
After F. D. McCarthy
(Below) CHEST ORNAMENT
FOR MEN
Tortoise shell on shell
New Ireland
Museum of Ethnology, Cologne
sport this fashion, but the Polynesian Maori allow such distinction
only to their noble families, and make a whole ceremony of the
occasion when one of their infants gets its nose pierced, in olden
times preferably with the pointed bone of an enemy. The Nor-
Papua pierce, in addition to the septum of the nose, its right side
and fill the holes with fancy decorations. This custom has been
copied in the Hindu high culture, although golden rings decorated
with jewels have replaced the old islanders' pig's teeth and bamboo
sticks. The Papua of Murik go even further : they pierce their
ACCESSORIES OF ALLURE 69
ears also and like to punctuate their eyes with a small sharp stick,
* painting ' a circle of black dots around the iris.
Among the strangest types of allure are the wooden or ivory disks
worn in the pierced upper or lower lips or in both, and also often
in the drawn-out holes of the ear-lobes. The Alaskan Indians
sport such wooden disks or labrets in the centre of their lower lips.
This custom has surpassed any imagination in West Africa, especially
in the region of Lake Chad, where the wooden disks worn in
feminin^ lips reach the size of saucers. (No wonder the art of
kissing is unknown to these fashionable ladies !) Ear piercings
can also end in horrifying deformations, with the rubberband-like
lobes being dragged down by heavy wooden logs. Our modern
ear ornaments bear just a faint resemblance to this stage of their
former development.
The pink to purple nail enamels of our modern ladies are no sign
of modern sophistication. Many children of nature file their nails
on rocks and pieces of slate and colour them afterwards in lavish
shades of red. Prehistoric mummies in the British Museum still
show this mark of vanity, which later was so highly perfected in
China and Egypt.
But what would all these beautifications of the body itself mean
if their general effect were not enhanced by the multitude of neck-
laces, bracelets, arm-rings, and feather crests which men and
women have added to their other accessories of physical allure !
From the modest sinew with its bird-bone * beads ' and shells, as
worn by the Selk'nam of Tierra del Fuego, the cockatoo crests and
paradise-birds' tails in the hair of the Polynesians, and the heavy
brass shields and collars of the African tribes, what wealth of never-
ending ideas we find to make nature serve man's (and woman's !)
vanity !
There is hardly anything in nature which has not been made use
of to decorate the human body and to demonstrate the taste and
the wealth of its bearer. Boar's fangs, bat's teeth, egg-shell disks,
snake bones, snails, berry clusters, seed ornaments, toucan beaks,
ivory-tusk fragments, tortoise-shell pendants, forged rings of iron,
silver, and gold, are just a few examples. But here, again, the
choice of ornaments and materials gives away the religious and
magic affiliations of their owner : among the moon-worshipping
mother-right peoples we will find characteristic oval crescents of
mother-of-pearl, tortoise-shell, and metals, which symbolize the
shape of the nocturnal light forms that still play so dominating a
role in the Mohammedan world while the disciples of the sun,
the roaming father-right peoples, prefer the circular disk, which they
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
display in magnificent variations of exquisitely inlaid or carved
specimens.
Boundless as this wealth of materials is, certain singular materials
among them enjoy a special world-wide popularity. Among them
is the cowrie shell, which has monetary value as well. It is worn
on arms and necks and in coiffures from Australia to the innermost
PREHISTORIC NECKLACE STONE AGE NECKLACE OF ENGRAVED
Snail-shells PEBBLES
From the cave Cro-Magnon
Departement Dordogne
parts of Africa. A close second place is occupied by the tiny disks
stencilled out from many varieties of sea shells (in Oceania) or
ostrich-eggs (in Africa). Colourful glass beads have penetrated
the dark continent to such an extent since the Middle Ages that
they have actually become a * native ' accessory. Large-size carved
images and chieftain's chairs are in vogue in West Africa, where
their finely carved details are at times completely covered with the
glamorous beads. Later, also, the Indians took to them quickly,
but developed very definite preferences which changed with the
waves of fashion. Many a white man who tried to offer the last
decade's fashionable blue beads found out to his chagrin that, for
instance, no well-groomed lady next to the Xingu was now willing
to accept anything but red beads !
ACCESSORIES OF ALLURE
Some tribes, as the south-eastern Calif ornian Kamia, reserved
certain species of shells for the men while their women claimed
exclusively for themselves the necklaces of beautiful * blue beads '
stencilled out of their own favourite clam. The Australian
aborigines have two specified preferences : the baler-shell (Melo
diadema) ornaments of Queensland, western Central Australia, and
north-eastern South Australia, and the pearl-shell (Meleagrina
maxima) ornaments, worn almost exclusively in the western half of
the continent. These decorations
are often engraved with delicate
ornamentations and worn as large
disks on the chest. They can have
magic powers, and are effective in
the hands of a rejected lover to
make a girl's " internal organs
shake with emotion, " as Spencer
and Gillen put it.
The masterpieces turned out
by the African metal craftsmen
reach extraordinary sizes. Even
the heaviest pieces, of which often
scores are worn, can compete in
workmanship with the daintier
specimens, as, for instance, the
goat's-hair bracelets covered with
copper wire. The closer we
approach the high cultures, the
more precious materials in our
sense of the word do we find in the products of exotic
jewellery. Among them is the akori, the * blue coral ' of Benin,
where ancient bronze plates show men so covered with bracelets
and necklaces that their mouths were hardly left free for breath-
ing. From old Peru come the * green pearls ' of Chrysocoll
and the beautiful sodalith stones gained in the pre-Inca mines
of Cerro Sapo. Pure gold was the material used by the African
Ashanti as weighting units for the precious dust itself ; and the
vanished gold coins of the Old and the New Worlds can to-day be
found in surprising quantities in the heavy necklaces of the North
African desert girls. The invaders of Peru found households full
of gadgets for daily use fashioned in pure gold. All this magnifi-
cence is worn either on the naked or the clothed body of man, since
decorative possessions are as old as and, indeed, frequently older
than the clothing. The decisive factor here was the climate.
ANCIENT NOSE ORNAMENT
(GOLD)
Chimu, Peru
After Antze
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
The Western garb of trousers, vest, and jacket has its origin in
the garments of the arctic peoples. For instance, the oldest clothes
of some Australian tribes and of the Fuegians consisted of loosely
worn fur coats and bast-like bark strings and girdles. To the game-
trapping Indians of Labrador a mink coat (in New York the mark
of social superiority) is by no means fashion-
able ; a Hudson's Bay Company * point '
blanket is the thing which is another
demonstration of the relativity of fashion.
The characteristic items of attire of later
developments are the penis case of bark or
leaves, often trimmed with feathers, and the
flexible belt of bark or raffia. Skirt -like
aprons of fibre and spiral -like girdles and
raincoats of pandanus leaves are other forms
of fashion, but all these manifold forms of
clothing or unclothing, including the varying
foot-gear of the ages, are not so much acces-
sories of allure as protective necessities. An
exception, perhaps, is the earliest form of a
very modern accessory of modern allure, the
brassiere, whose first appearance was as a
string used to bind down the developed
breasts of grown-up girls. When Father
Schulien insisted on an explanation of this
custom he was told by the Portuguese East
WOMAN'S COSTUME African Atchwabo : " Sir, the breasts vibrate.
When the men see this they burn." Many
African tribes sport this coquettish string,
which is sometimes replaced by a piece of
cloth, " to prevent the breasts from moving
up and down while the girls are walking."
As long as everybody wears about the same outfit one can hardly
count the daily garb among the accessories of allure. Only when
clothing gains a more individual touch by a greater accessibility of
materials, by the development of painted, printed, and woven
patterns, and the invention of the button, and other * unnecessary '
trimmings, can we speak of alluring dress. Because true allure is
an expression of individual taste.
Another more refined touch comes with the appreciation of
perfumes, hardly found in earliest times because most flowers of
the tropics have no scent and the secrets of chemistry were not
known to the peoples without written history.
North-eastern tribes,
Lake Leopold II,
Belgian Congo
After Maes
ACCESSORIES OF ALLURE 73
The finer gadgets and tools of vanity, the secret boxes, containers,
and flasks of the dressing-table, can be traced back to earliest times.
Tiny jars for lip rouge, fashioned of bone segments, are known
from palaeolithic times ; so are mixing-bowls and pestles for the
make-up. Small platters for the application of grease paint to the'
skin, even in the shape of a human hand with outstretched fingers,
are equally old and have later been copied in the luxurious materials
of ancient Egypt. Richly ornamented slate palettes, bone flasks,
and covered * cold cream ' containers were found in ice-age caves ;
and the elaborate inros of Japan are merely the jewel-studded
imitations of such flasks. The earliest form of the mirror is the
polished shell or metal disk ; the latter 's luxurious perfection in the
precious metals of Egypt, China, Byzantium, and Greece can be
admired in the museums of the world.
The degree of luxury reached during the pre-Christian epochs in
the countries of the ancient high cultures has never been equalled
or surpassed by the machine-made accessories of allure of our days.
Whoever has seen the necklaces of Egypt and of Ur (about 2500 B.C.)
in the British Museum will agree with this statement. We all
know the perfection of grooming and of sophisticated attractiveness
attained by Cleopatra, by the Arbiter elegantorum of Rome, and by
the Incas of Peru. The Empress Theodora of Byzantium was, as
far as grooming is concerned, a living piece of art, from the gold-
dust in her bluish hair and the Arabian stimmi on her brows to her
rosy toes. Her pillows of Chinese silk were filled with the down of
the Pontian crane : hundreds of flasks and gadgets covered her
vanity table of citrus wood ; her soap came from Spain, and her
bath-tub was made of terebinthian wood.
To equal such refinement, our epoch has neither the leisure nor
the wealth. Another, more puritan, conception has been given to
Western man since the comparatively recent words in the book of
Leviticus (xix, 28) were spoken : " Ye shall not make any cuttings
in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you : I am
the Lord."
Yet those who do not know of the * wizardries ' of the written
and the printed word have not heard this message, and for this
reason the men and women we call primitive still go on enjoying
the colours and the jewellery God provided for them in His free
realm of nature, and they still do their best to enhance the natural
charms of their bodies with the help of skills unforgotten through
the millenniums.
3*
CHAPTER THREE
The First Robot
HARD THOUGH LIFE is in the wilderness, early man nevertheless
could draw on the intellectual resources denied to his lesser
brethren, the members of the animal kingdom. Working with the
simplest of gadgets, he began to nurse a dream : to find a medium
PITFALL FOR ELEPHANTS
Hottentots
After Peter Kolb
human, magical, or otherwise- to help him to carry the burden of
daily toil. If he were fortunate enough to remove the cork from
the bottle of ingenuity, if he could rub the magic lamp of creative-
ness, a jinnee might arise whose powers he could put to service.
But, alas, his was not the world of The Arabian Nights ; and if he
were ever to find a magic helper it would have to be created
out of his own mind and built with his own hands. This servant
would be a machine indeed, the first machine, the first robot.
74
THE FIRST ROBOT 75
How great was his need for such a miraculous device ! Especially
was this true for peoples not yet acquainted with the comparative
security that comes with the knowledge of agriculture. The
arduous task of hunting and food gathering often limits man's
desire to exercise his individual creativeness. It takes long hours
to spot a nest of wild bees high up in some far-away tree and to make
the necessary preparations to obtain the honey ; to trail and kill
the bird on the wing ; to lurk in the bush for some shy game to
pass by ; or to watch the fish for the chance to spear them at a
second's warning. All such efforts require a great amount of
patience on the part of the hunter. Days may pass before an
animal approaches close enough to be bagged. Many a family
cannot easily stand the strain of waiting too long for provisions in
a society where the foresight to store staple foods in time of plenty
is not yet developed, or where that ' time of plenty ' may never come.
The ingenuity of man tried to overcome these hardships. Better
undoubtedly than the club or the stone as hunting tools were the
arrow, the harpoon, the lasso, the bola, the butterfly-net, and the
hand-thrown snare. True, these all still required the hunter's
constant presence and alertness, but they either augmented the
power of his bare hands or held the game securely until the hunter
could reach it. Some tools enabled the hunter to capture more
than one bird or animal at a time for instance, when he used the
game net and counted on the co-operation of his fellow-hunters to
drive many prey into its entangling meshes. From the times of
the Pharaoh Haremheb up to our day quail and other birds have
been hunted by this method of spreading out over a field a weighted
net into which the game birds are driven by helpers. This method
is used to-day by the Dayaks of Borneo who catch deer with a set of
perpendicularly arranged nets ; by the East African Washamba
who catch antelope and gazelles ; and by the Eskimos of Bering
Strait who bag rabbits. They are first driven into nets and then
killed by hand. Compared with earlier methods, these were im-
provements, but the continuous presence of the hunter was still the
invariable prerequisite to success.
Similar methods include obstructing the flight of a flock of birds
by nets. Following this method, the Siberians hunt geese, while
the Eskimos along the Yukon catch the white partridge with their
salmon nets. The battue principle applies a somewhat different
method. Thus, it was common among the North American
prairie tribes to hunt the buffalo by driving the herds along two
converging fences over a bluff. Certain primitive methods of bird-
catching have become part of our own hunting customs. The prey
76 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
is attracted either by whistling or by decoys from behind a blind.
Then the hunter releases by hand a mechanism for capturing it ;
finally he imprisons the bird in a container, cage, or net.
While the possibilities of a successful hunt were increased by all
such devices, the main problem had not yet been solved to achieve
equal results without the continuous presence of the hunter at or
near the catching spot. If the waiting, the handling, and releasing
of the weapon or catching tool, and the holding or killing of the
game could be replaced by mechanical devices a real step "towards
a greater amount of personal freedom for the hunter would indeed
have been achieved. The invention of such a device would enable
him to stay at home while his hunting was being taken care of, and
to exploit several game tracks simultaneously. In the time thus
gained he would be able to pursue other useful trades and handi-
crafts, or he could play and dance and sing and have a good time.
Perhaps it really was complacency and laziness that inspired the
first primitive genius to invent such devices. We don't know for
sure, but the very sounds of the words 'work,' 'travail,' ' Arbeit J
and the ' Atiyxhem ! ' of the Volga boatmen have so hollow a ring
that they all seem to express the depression of hard-labouring men
everywhere.
The day came when this first revolutionary invention was
actually made ; when man for the first time built a machine which
worked for him during his absence ; when human intelligence
created a robot to take his place with mechanical precision. This
miraculous tool was the animal-trap.
It worked like the net, the club, the hand-thrown snare, only
more precisely and effectively. In addition, its capacities were
greater than the much weaker efforts of the human hand which
it replaced. By the application of lever principles attached to the
delicate release mechanisms, the slightest touch would set into
motion the weight of considerable, even tremendous powers,
skilfully matched to the game animal's strength. Primitive man
certainly had no text-book knowledge of the principles of physics
and was ignorant of the causes of mechanical phenomena, but he
was, nevertheless, shrewd enough as an observer to imitate by
mechanical means what he had seen in nature. The living branch,
jerking back to its natural position after an accidental dislocation ;
the weight of dead trees thundering down the hill after a hurricane ;
the hazards created by a branch-covered hole in the ground these
and others were early man's physics teachers, and he made skilful
use of what he had learned from them. After he saw that his
devices worked he did not stop with the invention of just one kind
THE FIRST ROBOT
77
of trap. Combining his mechanical knowledge with his un-
excelled knowledge of the peculiarities of climate and of the
behaviour of animals in his locality, he succeeded in devising
hundreds of different models of traps, all cunningly adapted to the
special conditions of his surroundings.
For the effectiveness of his robot he made use of the currents of
water ; the slippery quality of ice ; the thirst of a jungle beast
trotting along its path to the spring ; the bear's sweet tooth ; the
curiosity of the whisky-jack ; the robber instinct of the owl ; the
shyness of nocturnal creatures ; and the pride of the lynx who will
jump once to get free, but never a second
time. Knowing the peculiarities of his prey,
he thwarted even their keen sense of smell
by destroying all odours of the human hand
left on his machine and, as the modern criminal
uses his own methods to avoid tell-tale finger-
prints, the man of nature covered up his scent
by singeing wood, by the use of * living ' twines
and glues, and by the scents of nature resin,
blood, or animal scents like castor eum. To
mislead the eye of the game as well, he added
a masterful art of camouflage by building
artificial pens around his machine or covering
it with branches, and by spreading bunches of
dry savannah grass over the deadly pits he had
dug in the soil.
The hundreds of traps he invented, in all
sizes, from the bamboo tube for mice to the enormous models for
giraffes and elephants, have amazed scientists for years. Many
museums possess, in the collections brought back by their explorers,
traps or parts of traps which can be neither properly identified nor
assembled. It takes a specialized knowledge to reconstruct these
machines, and often this can only be done after a previous thorough
study of the tribe, climate, and fauna concerned.
Varied as the applied physical principles are, all machines that
hold or kill the game animal without the presence of the hunter can
be classified in four major groups according to the motive principle
used. The recognition of these groups furnishes one of the most
fascinating insights into the great intelligence displayed by early
man in his efforts to improve his standards of living. These four
principal types of trap occur in all imaginable versions and varieties ;
often one or more of them are combined for the sake of greater
effectiveness.
GIRAFFE PITFALL
Kafirs, South Africa
After Wood
78 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
The GRAVITY TRAP, as its name implies, makes use of weight to
achieve the desired effect of catching a special animal either the
weight of the animal itself, or the power of the one or more falling
objects so arranged that they hit the victim after the release of the
mechanism. The only existing gravity trap of the first kind, using
an animal's own weight to bring about the capture, is the pit trap.
Generally it merely consists of a deep hole dug in the middle of an
animal track, its opening carefully camouflaged by branches, moss,
leaves, and the like. The prey steps unsuspectingly upon this
covering which gives way, thus catching the victim in the narrow
excavation whose dimensions correspond exactly to its size. To
GRAVITY TRAP FOR BEARS, WOLVES, AND OTTERS
Tahltan Indians, North America
After Emmons
prevent escape, several methods are used. The possibility of the
animal jumping or climbing out of the hole is eliminated by sufficient
depth of the hole, or by its conic shape, into which the animal is
wedged by its own weight.
The Bushmen catch the giraffe by dividing the bottom of the pit
into two sections, leaving a central ridge of soil. The trapped
animal rides helplessly on the ridge, unable to lift its long legs from
the trap. To increase the effectiveness of the pitfall, pointed sticks
are occasionally rammed into the bottom of the hole to pierce or
wound the animal. This type of trap is not only used singly, but
also several may be arranged at regular intervals along a fence or
in great numbers on game paths leading to the watering-place.
Frequently converging hedgerows of considerable length make an
alley to the pits.
This very effective method was, as we may recall, often copied
by the white man during the Second World War when ' the animal's
THE FIRST ROBOT
79
own weight ' was the weight of our modern dinosaurian, the tank,
which plunged into similarly camouflaged pits.
The second type of gravity trap uses a log, or a combination of
other heavy objects, released by the animal itself to effect its capture
or to kill it. As a result of primitive man's experience that falling
logs create a force which increases in proportion to the height of
their fall, this height is artificially increased to the greatest limit of
effectiveness. The simplest example of such a trap is a heavy
stone held in equilibrium by a small stick which holds the bait and
acts as a release mechanism. Pulling at the lure, the animal causes
the stone to fall down upon it. However, this type of release is
ineffective whenever the weight to
be released is too heavy, because
then the animal can nibble on the
bait without actually releasing the
trap. The solution was found by
adding a system of force-reducing
levers and by developing a trigger
device. Such traps are used all
over the world, especially by the
peoples of the arctic cultures. In-
creasingly heavier objects were
heaped on the striking beam which,
in turn, required more and more
delicate construction of the release
mechanism. The result was astounding. The Montagnais-
Naskapi build bear traps weighted by four or five heavy logs
which are sprung by the mere touch of the victim's inquisitive
nose.
Having perfected the gravity trap, the primitive hunter applied
other laws of nature. Observing animals occasionally strangling
themselves in the liana thicket of the primeval forest, early man
evolved the SNARE TRAP. Utilizing the forward movement of the
animal, he sets this device mostly on a Vertical plane. Since the
most sensitive part of the bodies of most game animals is the region
of the neck, snares are set on a game path in such a way that the
head of the prey enters the noose, which tightens like a lasso. To
keep and to hold the snare open, a number of secondary appliances
are needed. Here, too, combinations of fences are often used with
the snares set at the openings.
An apparatus still in use in many parts of the Old World is the
wheel trap, based upon the snare principle. To build it, a number
of pointed flexible sticks are inserted from the outside into a wreath
SNARE TRAP
Labrador Indians
After Lips
8o
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
SPIKED-WHEEL TRAP
Maka, Cameroons,
West Africa
After G. Lindblom
of fibres in such a way that their points join each other at the centre.
Attached to a tree or pole, this trap is laid in the game path, most
often over a small pit. When the victim steps on it the flexible
spikes give way to its foot, inserting themselves, when the animal
tries to escape, into its tender fetlock. The
greater its efforts to get free, the more severe
is the pain, since the pointed sticks penetrate
ever deeper into the flesh. An additional
snare is sometimes laid round thisr spiked-
wheel trap to close as soon as the animal
tries to escape.
The third principal trap system, the
SPRINGING-POLE TRAP, is still in daily use
among many peoples of Africa, Asia and
America. It is based on the power prin-
ciple of the inertia of a flexible stick. The
material used as a spring is a bent tree or
a branch which naturally seeks to regain
its equilibrium. This, however, requires
that the tree or branch be firmly connected to some arrangement
by which the motive power can be utilized. This, in the case of
the spring-pole trap, is usually a snare.
This type of trap is generally used by agricultural peoples, who
use it to catch smaller animals as a supple-
mentary addition to their diet. Their more
sedentary way of life gives them the leisure
to build this kind of trap and refine its
release mechanisms in numerous variations.
Any engineer who concerns himself with
the problems of kinematics or the mechan-
ism of driving gears will recognize the SPRINGING-POLE TRAP
arrangement of these release constructions
as the oldest application of relay structures
which occupy a paramouitt place in modern
technique.
The application of the-springing-pole trap with its pull principle
is not limited to animal traps alone ; the inertia of the bent rod
serves many other purposes. In the Middle Congo springing poles
are used for the execution of slaves and prisoners of war, whose
heads are snapped off by the force of the blow. The modern
gallows used for executions are by no means authentic springing-
pole traps. They are not traps at all. Requiring the presence
of the executioner, the gallows is merely a * trap-like catching
FOR MARMOTS
Eskimo
After E. W. Nelson
THE FIRST ROBOT
method/ The natives of Borneo and Hindustan set the bellows of
their iron-melting furnaces in action with the help of springing
poles. A similar utilization is found on northern European
farmers' stoves, and in Eastern Asia they furnish the power for
native weaving looms. Occasionally the spring-pole trap is used
for fishing, with a hook or a fish-pot taking the place of the snare.
Other forms of the springing-pole trap principle have helped
primitive man in his war efforts and in his peace-time entertainment,
because the springing-pole trap is the
forerunner of both the shooting bow
and the cross-bow, as well as of the
violin bow and all stringed instru-
ments. Primitive man transformed
the springing-pole trap into a music
bow by mounting it on a sound-
board such as an empty pumpkin
shell. By the addition of a number
of such musical bows, he created
the first stringed instruments, the
forerunners of our modern violins,
'cellos, etc. Both the shooting bow
and the cross-bow, as weapons, have
their origin in the springing-pole
trap ; we can trace back the latter
to China of the twelfth century B.C.
The revolutionizing influence of the
cross-bow weapon in the wars of
antiquity is familiar to all students
of history. It is possibly no over-
statement to say that the might of the Roman Empire would
have been impossible without the ancient cross-bow, based upon
principles first developed by primitive man in his construction of
animal traps.
The TORSION TRAP, finally, is based upon another widely applied
power principle. Man had observed that a twisted elastic string
tends to regain its original form and, if prevented from doing so,
generates considerable power. The force of torsion was applied
to sinews, roots, or fibres. By attaching to these a leverage device
the torsional force was effectively directed. A frame, often com-
bined with a net, caught the animal ; or a wooden board was forced
downwards on the victim. All torsion traps are designed for
close action, since success is possible only in its immediate vicinity.
This kind of trap had its origin in the high-culture regions of
SPRINGING-POLE TRAP WITH
FISH-POT
Bangongo, West Africa
After Torday-Joyce
RELEASE MECHANISMS OF SPRINGING-POLE TRAPS
Winnebago, Kwakiutl,
North America North America
Makusi,
Guiana,
South America
Pomeroon
River,
Guiana,
South America
Bushongo,
West Africa
Arawak,
Guiana,
South America
Pangwe,
West Africa
ONE-PIECE SPRINGING-POLE
TRAP FOR RATS
Jaunde, West Africa
After G. Tessmann
TORSION TRAP FOR
WOLVES AND FOXES
Eskimo, Norton Sound
After Lips
THE FIRST ROBOT 83
Asia and Africa, being later more widely diffused. Wherever it
is in use among primitive tribes like the Eskimo and Chukchee,
it has been secondarily adopted and is not a result of their own in-
vention. The entire construction of these traps is similar to our
modern steel traps, even though the materials used are different.
All steel traps in modern stores, from the simple mouse-trap to
the huge traps that are used for capturing the largest animals,
are simply torsion traps which vary only in their construction
material from those used by their original inventors.
The Greeks adopted the torsion principle from the Orient.
It reached a high degree of perfection in the gigantic Roman
throwing machines (euthytons, catapults , onagers, tollenos). The
necessary tows consisted of twined sinews, a material even to-day
used for the wolf and fox traps of the Norton Sound Eskimos.
The ballistic machines of ancient times were so effective that some
European museums put theirs at the disposal of their governments
during the First World War, and they were actually used for the
throwing of mines.
The animal trap invented by primitive man has opened so many
roads to modern technological development that no one who has
followed the development of this first robot will deny its over-
whelming importance. The invention of the first animal trap
was certainly of greater consequence to the history of mankind
than the invention of the wheel. The application of the newly
found motive powers in building the animal traps had greater
consequences than any other single invention in the technological
history of mankind.
When was it that early man began to subdue the forces of nature
to make them work at his command ? It must have been tens
of thousands of years ago that the genius of early man invented
traps. There is no people on this earth that does not know of
one or the other principle for making traps ; even the anthropo-
logically oldest cultures know them. Prehistoric facts are equally
conclusive, and sometimes offer us the possibility of dating the
different kinds of trap devices.
In the region of the Garonne River of Southern France (especially
in Dordogne), and across the Pyrenees, in the Basque country of
Biscaya, certain prehistoric caverns have been discovered which have
been identified beyond any doubt as the human abodes and places
of worship occupied during the Later Palaeolithic period of Europe.
There have been found in these caverns strange examples of the
art of early man, expecially certain unusual drawings of animals
like buffaloes and mammoths. Beautifully preserved in their
84 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
glowing red and yellow-ochre colours through the millenniums,
these pictures offer a strange sight because the animal portraits,
drawn in very naturalistic style, are always combined with mys-
terious geometric symbols which sometimes were even painted
on the animals themselves. A peculiar feature of these repre-
sentations is the fact that these animal portraits in their combination
with the geometrical signs did not appear close to the cave entrances,
but rather, were always found far back in their interior, removed
from daylight and visible only by means of artificial lighting. The
hidden locations of these paintings makes it obvious that they
were not meant to serve as an art gallery of the ice age. Just
what their purpose was mystified scholars for some time.
In the search for an answer, scientists made use of certain
facts. First, it was known that the chief form of economy during
the Glacial period was that of hunting and that, therefore, the
animal was pre-eminent in early man's mind. Secondly, the
hunting habits of such primitive tribes as the arctic peoples,
the Bushmen, and the Australian aborigines who, though living
to-day, are still on the same cultural and economic level as the
Ice Age man, provide clues to and suggest possible explanations
of the mysterious cave paintings.
Even to-day, African Bushmen as well as Australian natives
get together on the evening before a hunt and perform magical
dances and rites to safeguard its success. A witch doctor is their
song and show leader. The likeness of the game to be hunted,
be it kangaroo or antelope, is either drawn in the sand or painted
with ochre on a rocky wall. The hunters then gather round this
image and run their spears through the picture of the animal.
Without this procedure, these tribes are firmly convinced, they
would be unable to bag animals the following day. In the mind
of primitive man there is no differentiation between an object and
its image ; to him the drawn picture and the animal itself are
identical. Accordingly, the drawn and pierced animal has been
killed already, and the hunt of the coming day is not much more
than a formality.
It is no far-fetched idea, therefore, to interpret the paintings
inside the caves of palaeolithic man as similar magic hunting rites.
This view is further supported by the presence in the caves of
other pictures representing dancing witch doctors wearing animal
masks, another practice equally frequent among primitive tribes
of our time who believe that these images favourably influence
the multiplying of the game and give good luck to the hunter.
If these same practices were used by the ice-age hunter how
THE FIRST ROBOT 85
was he able to hunt such mighty animals as the buffalo and
mammoth, against which his primitive hunting tools would seem
inadequate ? This question was solved by modern scientific in-
terpretation : nowadays those mystical symbols, formerly known
GRAVITY TRAPS
Ice Age drawings
After Lips
GRAVITY TRAPS
In use by primitive peoples of to-day
as signes obscurs, have found their correct explanation. To-day
there is no shadow of a doubt left in international science that
they represent outline drawings of animal traps, recorded so
realistically tens of millenniums ago by the early inhabitants of
Europe in their caverns of Spain and France that even the details
of their construction and the variety of their types are known.
And we know now that these earliest machines are ten thousand
86
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
to twenty thousand years old. The pictures in the caves originated
during the third Glacial period and the post- Glacial periods which
took place in these regions, as science can prove, during the years
from 20,000 to 8000 B.C.
In these ancient drawings we recog-
nize now without difficulty the gravity
trap (drawn on the body of a gigantic
buffalo in the cavern of Font-de-
Gaume) which is in use among to-
day's primitive tribes all over the
world. With this same model the
South African Bushman catches the
hyena ; the North American Tahltan
MURALS FROM AN ANCIENT Indian, the wolf ; the Blackfoot Indian,
EGYPTIAN GRAVE, DEPICT- the jackal ; the East African native of
ING GAZELLES CAUGHT IN the Maconde Plateau, the antelope ;
and the Labrador Indian, the bear.
In terms of world-wide distribution
and extraordinary age, the spiked-wheel
trap is certainly the most interesting of
hunting devices. We find it clearly depicted in many prehistoric
caves and in ancient Egyptian tombs, as for instance on the mural
at Hieraconpolis. The Swedish scientist, Lindblom, has traced it
WHEEL TRAP
Hieraconpolis, Egypt
After J. Kapart
ICE AGE DRAWINGS OF GRAVITY TRAPS ON BUFFALO
Cave Font-de-Gaume
After Capitan, Breuil, and Peyrony
through Africa and Asia, in Asia as far as the Karakorum, the
Etsingol, and even the Amur. Frobenius published its likeness
as shown on the palaeolithic rock paintings of Fezzan, and Breuil's
pictures from Tabel Bala show its wide use in the Sahara,
THE FIRST ROBOT
Strange as the idea may seem to some one not familiar with
the facts of man's first robot, we know now that our utilization of
the four main power principles, extensively em-
ployed in our modern technology, originated from
unknown and unnamed inventors of the Glacial
period who lived on this earth tens of millenniums
before our time. Long before Archimedes they
invented, based upon the application of the laws
of leverage, the important relay and release
mechanisms whose analogous application in
modern machinery can easily be observed by
any layman, even if their construction has
undergone considerable improvements.
Applying the principles of the gravity trap,
the old Egyptians utilized its general possibilities
by creating the slot-machine. Heron of Alex-
andria provides us with the drawing of such a
machine for the sale of consecrated water. In
it the inserted coin fell upon a ' trap J lever
mechanism, thereby opening a flap valve from
the faucet of which flowed exactly the amount
of water the coin had paid for. To-day, when
we receive a sandwich or a postage stamp or a
package of chewing gum by inserting a coin in
the slot of a slot-machine, we only prove the
efficiency of the gravity trap ; the coin assumes
the role of the animal whose weight regulated by
the distance of the fall sets the release mechanism
into motion. The same principle rules the opera-
tion of the slot-machine, the turnstile, and the
self-playing gramophone.
Two modern ' traps ' without primitive fore-
runners are the ' electric-eye ' gate whose beam Ethnology, Cologne
of light, when broken by an approaching person's
shadow, automatically opens a door, and the famed * electronic
rat-trap/ which has a similar photo-electric mechanism. Both are
real traps, not 'trap-like catching methods,' since they do not
require the presence of any human attendant to become effective.
In both cases, the newly added touch is derived from the elec-
tronic wizardry of the twentieth century, but the old robot idea
of exercising power even in the absence of man himself is as old
as the ice age.
TRAP CHARM
North Borneo
Museum of
CHAPTER FOUR
This Friendly Earth
FROM THE BEGINNINGS of time the very subsistence of human
life has depended upon the gifts which this old earth chooses
to grant to man. Bread and meat, fish, fruit, and vegetables
the foundations of our present-day diet are still the same basic
INDIAN HUNTERS ON SNOW-SHOES
By courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History , New York
means of existence as they were when the first human beings
walked on the earth. Even in our ' Atomic Age ' we have not yet
been able to create either nectar and ambrosia or the philosopher's
pill as substitutes for these fundamental foodstuffs. The only
difference is that the size of our world has shrunk. It is now,
more than ever, One World.
When drought dooms the wheat harvests of Argentina and
Canada or the rice harvests of Burma and Siam ; when the meat
production of the cattle-producing countries lets us down, starva-
tion rules the earth exactly as hunger harassed the much smaller
88
THIS FRIENDLY EARTH 89
worlds of primitive men when the buffalo herds stayed away
from the prairies, when the caribous of the Canadian Indians
failed to appear, when the waters of the Nile refused to rise in
Egypt, when glossina, the tsetse-fly, decimated the East African
herds, when the Siberian reindeer withdrew to the farthest northern
reaches, when the heat killed the African Bushmen's wild melons,
when the nardoo seed and the bunya-bunya burned in Australia.
Although we have created the prerequisites for increasing the
population of the globe by learning to wrest more food from
the soil, in principle, our food exploits are still based on the ancient
practices of our forefathers. Like them, we are still dependent
upon the products of the vegetable and the animal kingdoms.
To-day, as millenniums ago, the tilling of the soil and the art of
husbandry are foundations of our nourishment ; and neither our
primitive ancestors nor we moderns have been able to overcome
the hazards of climate.
All growth of animal and plant food depends on climate to
the largest extent. Indirectly, all forms of human life are shaped
by the influences of climate. Man has, therefore, been compelled
to adjust his habits and possessions and all his material needs to
the climate into which he was born. Correspondingly, the members
of the animal kingdom had to adapt their organisms and the
functions of their bodies to its whims.
Subjected to probably the most severe climatic changes, and
consequently to the greatest changes of flora and fauna, was the
race which for over seventy-five thousand years made the history
of the Stone Age the race of the Neanderthal man. 'The in-
genuity of this very ancient race was able to cope with the
tremendous changes of the climate by a successful economic and
cultural adjustment to the shifting environment. Although the
Neanderthal man had not yet developed a knowledge of hus-
bandry and of the cultivation of plants, it was perhaps just this
very ignorance which made it possible for him to survive under
continuously changing conditions. He subsisted on whatever
nature offered him.
Characteristic of the form of economy of this early palaeolithic
man is the common hunt, in which a group of tribesmen joined.
Plant foods of wild berries, seeds and wild fruits were supplemented
by the meat of the rhinoceros and mammoth, reindeer and aurox,
and woolly nasicorn and cave bear. The extant hunting tools
and weapons of these people indicate that it must have been
impossible for the individual hunter to kill any of these animal
giants without the co-operation of others ; hence the collective
CHIPPEWA WOMEN
Beating off the kernels of wild rice into the bottom of their canoe
By courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History, New York
IROQUOIS INDIANS
Harvesting corn
By courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History New York
THIS FRIENDLY EARTH
9 1
hunt. The form of economy of the Ice Age consequently
necessitated the organization of bands as a prerequisite for the
survival of the individual. Another factor indicating the co-
operation of the whole group was the fact that the quantity of meat
obtained from a single prey animal surpassed by far the needs of
one individual family and was sufficient to allow its distribution
beyond the family circle. The reasons for this social practice
were by no means humanitarian, the * share-all ' being dictated by
economic need. This method of distribu-
tion of the hunted game among all had the
further advantage that, in case of bad hunting
luck of one group, all could share in the
benefits obtained by others. With its know-
ledge of the battue hunt, it was this type of
society that developed also the first robots,
the first animal traps.
This form of economy of the early Palaeo-
lithic Age, which has been established as the
indisputably oldest of all forms of economy
known to man, is by no means extinct to-
day. It is practised in our time by all those
primitive tribes whom we call hunters and
food gatherers.
Under varied geographic conditions, they
are scattered all over the globe. They live AUSTRALIAN HUNTER
in the regions of the tropical, primeval
forests everywhere : the Pygmies of Africa, the Veddas of Ceylon,
the Semang and Senoi of the Malacca Peninsula, the Kubu of
Sumatra, others of South Asia, and in South America numerous
bands of the Ges family. The Bushmen of South Africa and
many Australian tribes are the hunters and food gatherers of the
sub-tropical steppes and deserts. The Fuegians of the extreme
southern American sea-coast are their sub-arctic counterparts.
The economic practices of these peoples show distinct relation to
the varied climatic conditions of their respective habitats. The
outstanding characteristic is the lack of stability in their lives
caused by the scarcity of food. To survive, even their smallest
groups must often exploit large territories, which compels them to
make continuous migrations.
At this early stage of social development, a division of labour
was developed, with the women mainly gathering the vegetal
products like fruits, bulbs, roots, and seeds, and the men providing
meat and fish. The women's tool to break the soil for getting
92 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
at bulbs and tubers is the simple digging stick, mostly consisting
of a pointed branch. The men's hunting weapons are spears and
clubs and, in some cases, bows and arrows.
The skill with which they use their primitive tools is amazing
to an observer. They feel and act, as the explorer Seiwert says of
the Bagielli, a Pygmy tribe of the Cameroons, like * lords of the
forest.' Despite their small stature they fearlessly attack chim-
panzee and gorilla, leopard and buffalo, and even the mighty
elephant. The same author's description of one of their methods
HUNTER IN OSTRICH MASK, APPROACHING OSTRICHES
Bushman Drawing
After Stow
of elephant hunting shows interesting analogies to the mammoth
hunts of the Ice Age.
They first cover their entire bodies with fresh elephant dung,
which enables them to cover up the human scent and to approach
the animal unsuspectedly. Creeping on their bellies, they advance
slowly, until they reach the animal itself, to suddenly push with
great power a poisoned spear into the soft lower parts of its body ;
whereupon it soon collapses. With their sharp bush-knife they
then cut off the trunk, and their victim bleeds to death.
This is just one example of early man's many ingenious methods
of overcoming by ruse the drawbacks of his primitive equipment.
He is equally inventive when it comes to the full exploitation of
available plant foods. As soon as one area has been exhausted
new quarters are set up in another, until an entire district, often
several square miles, has been completely exploited. With the
change of seasons, the gathered products change. Thus in dry
seasons the Bushmen collect by the thousands ripened spike
THIS FRIENDLY EARTH
93
These
DIGGING STICKS
melons growing on the barren sands of the Kalahari,
melons enable them to live without water.
A well-established tradition prevents these tribes of the hunting
and food-gathering stage from devouring everything in sight.
They discriminate carefully between useful and harmful plants,
and exclude the latter from their diet. The discovery of a new
food plant is, to them, a great invention. The cousins Sarasin
name forty plant and twenty animal species which are used for
food by the Vedda tribe. The Australian aborigines' usage of
edible plants is even greater ;
Thomas mentions three hundred
of them.
As for the size of the hunting
and food-gathering groups, it is
logical that bands are smallest
where food conditions are most
unfavourable, as in Tasmania,
Australia, and in the arctic region.
The average Tasmanian group con-
sisted, according to H. L. Roth, of
only three or four huts, inhabited
by three or four individuals each.
The most numerous group among
the primitives of Malacca visited by
Martin had twenty-seven people, p
Seligman found the Veddas living chaco
in bands of one to five families.
According to Malinowski, most Australians roam in small units
of two or three families, with a total of six to nine persons. With
more favourable economic conditions, the bands grow in size.
A Kurnai group of south-eastern Australia was, as Howitt states,
composed of eight families ; a Wurunjeri group of six. In the
Bushman territory Passarge found communities living together
under twelve adjoining windbreaks. The Andamanese settle in
groups of about fifty individuals.
But even if we recognize the hunters and food gatherers as
adherents of the oldest form of economic activity, their way of life
constitutes by no means ' the beginning/ Their many technical
skills, their knowledge of weapons, traps, hunting methods, and
cooking with fire, evidence a long previous development. During
former centuries man's intellectual superiority had made him
surpass the animals which are still forced to adjust their bodies to
the available food in its natural form. Man had found the proper
British
Columbia
British
Columbia
94 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
methods of preparing what he found in a way most suitable for his
organism. By changing the raw materials of his diet with the help
of fire, he made his food tasty and digestible.
How humanity advanced from this earliest acquisitive economy
to the higher stage of agriculture and the domestication of animals
is one of the most fascinating problems of ancient and modern
science. The scholars of classic Greece pondered over this
question. They distinguished three forms of economy : their
own, based on agriculture ; a second, applied by the cattle-
breeding nomads on the rims of the Grecian world ; and a third,
the purely acquisitive system of food gathering and hunting.
But the champions of this conception made the fundamental
mistake of forcing these three coexistent cultures into a chrono-
logical sequence. From their error arose the theory of the " three
stages " of hunting, cattle breeding, and agriculture a theory
that was widely accepted for many centuries without refutations.
The initial stage of food gathering and hunting was described
either as the golden age of paradise or as a semi-animalic period
of complete savagery. This persistent theory of the three stages of
human economy was reflected in the eighteenth- century writings
of Rousseau and Adam Smith. Its nineteenth- century prophets
were, among others, Friedrich List and the Italian S. Cognetti de
Martiis, the French expert on prehistory Mortillet, and the Belgian
Laveleye.
However, this old theory and especially its assumption of a
chronological sequence could no longer be upheld in view of
the increasing ethnological material and the new scientific facts
brought in from the field. The works of Ernst Grosse and
Eduard Hahn especially cast new light upon the different economic
forms of human society. Yet even to-day the scientific struggle
about the question of the origin and invention of agriculture and
cattle breeding has not come to an end. Many scholars still try
to explain the advance from the acquisitive to a productive form of
economy with the help of psychological analysis, Taylor, for
example, believed that the invention of agriculture was no com-
plicated ' invention ' at all. He held that it was quite natural for
hunters and food gatherers to sow or plant the familiar seeds and
roots in a suitable spot. As a consequence of this habit, he argues,
the roaming hunters and food gatherers settled down, thereby
laying the foundation for a higher form of existence, culturally
speaking.
On a closer view these psychological explanations turn out to
be mere conjectures. The ethnological facts show with great
THIS FRIENDLY EARTH 95
clearness that the psychological preparedness (one of the most
important elements of which is the capacity to wait for the fruit
or plant to ripen) to proceed to agriculture was non-existent in
the minds of the hunters and food gatherers. Whenever and
wherever benevolent white men have tried to convert acquisitive
tribes to agriculture the results have always shown that the greatest
enemies of the new and better form of life were the prospective
converts themselves. The seeds distributed for planting either
went directly into the stomach instead of into the soil or, when the
fields were prepared by white experts, the immature young plants
were pulled up and eaten on the spot.
The Brazilian Government chose the Bororo, a hunting and
food-gathering tribe, as * guinea-pigs ' in an agricultural experi-
ment. They received soil and seeds. The fields were prepared
for them by government crews, and they were provided with
enough additional foodstuffs to subsist until harvest time. What
happened ? As soon as the natives were the happy possessors
of axes they had a good time cutting down the Piki trees they
formerly had to climb in order to pick the fruit. The sugar-cane
plantations needed permanent sentries to protect them from
complete destruction. The cassava fields were ruined. The
women, accustomed to the digging of roots in the forest, pulled up
the growing shrubs and went to work with their digging sticks,
looking for * hidden roots.'
A white missionary who tried to make the African Wasekele,
a hunting and food-gathering tribe, appreciate the blessings of
agriculture and Christianity combined, received the shrewd
rebuke : " Do the monkeys die of hunger ? We know the forests
and the waterways. We move from place to place, because God
wants us to. We must not touch a hoe to till the soil, because
God has forbidden us to do so." Who is not reminded by these
words of the " lilies of the field " ?
The Negritos of Luzon who have been persuaded at times to
try a little planting, " do not want to be tied down to a fixed place,"
Vanoverbergh states. He adds : " Very often, before their plants
bear fruit, they are already far away in some other part of the
forest."
One of the best examples of the hunters' and food gatherers'
complete inability to invent or develop agriculture is furnished
by an old tale of the Pygmies of the Belgian Congo, who, proud
of their courage and their liberty, regard themselves as superior
to the agricultural Negroes among whom they live without ever
adopting their form of economy. The tale, recorded by Schebesta,
9& THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
deals with the right of the Pygmies to collect bananas from the
Negroes' plantations.
A Pygmy, on his roamings through the forest, came one day to
a chimpanzee village. He was accompanied by a Negro. There
they saw, for the first time in their lives, a group of banana-trees
laden with golden fruit. Since they believed the fruit to be
poisonous they did not dare to try their taste. The Negro, however,
kept encouraging his companion, the Pygmy, to find out what their
taste was like. Finally, the Pygmy ate some and found that they
were delicious. In spite of this, the Negro still did not dare to
do likewise. In the evening, as they went to sleep, the Negro was
convinced that his companion would die of the * poisonous ' fruit
during the night. To his great surprise, he found him alive in the
morning. Now, he himself finally dared to eat of the new fruit,
and he, too, found it excellent. Both thought of ways to take bananas
along to plant them near their homes. The Pygmy took some of the
fruit and laughed at the * stupid ' Negro who took some of the shoots
of the tree for slips. Both went home. The dwarf planted the
fruits in the wilderness ; the Negro set the shoots in his plantation.
But the Pygmy waited in vain for his bananas to grow. They rotted
in the soil, and that was that. How great, however, was his surprise
when he came months later to the Negro's village where he found
a group of beautifully grown banana-trees full of fruit ! Nevertheless
he pointed out to the Negro that he was not a planter and that he
preferred by far to pursue his hunt. He advised the Negro to go
on planting bananas because from time to time he would drop in
to get his share. Since that time, the Bambuti claim the right to
gather bananas in the Negroes' plantations, because the Pygmies
are the inventors of the fruit and only through them the Negroes
learned to eat them.
These are only a few examples. They demonstrate that con-
jectures based upon our present-day psychology do not lead us
anywhere in an effort to determine the step from food gatherers
and hunters to agriculture and the domestication of animals.
Another presumption that lingers in the mind of many an
anthropologist and economist does not clear the way either. This
is the idea that sedentariness was the result of agriculture. This
presumption holds that it was not until the invention of agriculture
that mankind became relatively sedentary and that sedentariness
was a consequence of, and not a prerequisite for, the invention
of agriculture. This opinion, too, is a psychological construction
which is not borne out by the facts. There can be no doubt
that at least a relative sedentariness was the necessity from which
an invention of agriculture could derive. Furthermore, the in-
THIS FRIENDLY EARTH 97
ventors of the higher forms of economy had to possess the necessary
psychological readiness, the attitude of waiting for the ripening
of the fruit.
What groups of people, then, possess all the psychological and
factual prerequisites to become the inventors of agriculture ?
They exist, indeed, furnishing by their type of economy in all
respects the missing link between hunters and food gatherers,
on the one side, and the tribes of productive economy, on the
other. I call them the harvesters. Their food supply is derived
from the harvesting of one or a few wild plants, which provide their
chief sustenance for the entire year. They are neither pastoral
nor agricultural, but base their entire economic system upon the
harvesting, not just the gathering, of wild plants.
Harvesting tribes have lived or still live to-day in all five conti-
nents. The economic form of the later Palaeolithic Age up to
the beginnings of the Neolithic period was based on the harvesting
of wild fruits and grains, as numerous excavations have demon-
strated. In Africa we find to-day scarcely any real harvesters,
but the old reports indicate that the harvesting of wild plants
and seeds must have played a certain role in the economy of many
African tribes. Herodotus reports that the lotus lily was harvested
by the Egyptians in great numbers, to be dried in the sun, worked
into flour, and used for the baking of bread. He describes the
root as tolerably sweet and the size of an apple. Kotschy reports
from Kordofan that wild rice was harvested to serve for the baking
of bread. Schweinfurth specifies three different Oryza (rice)
species which constituted the main source of food in tropical Africa
without being planted. In the Senegal region harvested wild rice
is an important item of merchandise on the market-places. It is
in great demand, and sells at higher prices than the rice obtained
from agriculture.
In Australia we find harvesting tribes especially in the far eastern,
southernmost, and northerly districts. The bases of subsistence
of these harvesting tribes are the wild yam, the nardoo seed, the
lily root, the bunya-bunya fruit, the cycas fruit, and others. It is
significant that these products are either kept in their natural state
or processed into forms more easily preserved, and that they
provide the main sustenance for the entire year. They are also
widely traded. In some instances treatment of food by fermentation
is known, as among the tribes of the Carpentaria Gulf. This process
is further developed in Polynesia and among certain arctic tribes.
In southern and western New Guinea the harvesting fruit is the
wild sago palm, which is the main source of food for many tribes.
98 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
The ancient reindeer breeders of Asia were probably originally
fishermen and harvesters before they proceeded to reindeer
AUSTRALIAN
NARDOO PLANT
THE BUNYA-BUNYA FRUIT OF
THE AUSTRALIAN HARVESTERS
After R. Brough Smyth
breeding. Even to-day large sections of the arctic regions are
inhabited by the Chukchee, the Yakut, and the Tungus, in whose
lives harvested wild roots,
onions, and garlic play an im-
portant part. The Chukchee,
especially, gather the roots and
the centre portion of Claytonia
acutifolia Willd in great quan-
tities. This plant is pickled and
eaten all year long, up to the
next harvesting season. The
Polynesians could not have
settled on the coral atolls with-
out the existence of the wild
bread-fruit tree and the wild
coco palm. In the Chaco
region of South America the
algarroba and the tusca are
harvested. The Araucanians
and the ancient Peruvians har-
vested the wild potato. In a
prehistoric collection from Peru
Harshberger found small tubers of this plant, about an inch in
diameter, very similar to those of the wild-potato plants still
growing on certain Mexican mountains.
CALIFORNIAN INDIAN WOMEN
TRANSPORTING WATER AND
GRASS SEED
After Francis Drake
THIS FRIENDLY EARTH 99
Among the most important North American harvesting foods
are wild rice, the pifion nut, and the acorn. These are substituted
for and supplemented by additional plants, like the pods of the
mesquite tree, the mescal root, the tule root, and numerous wild
seeds. East-central Calif ornian tribes mainly subsist on acorns
and pinons. This accounts for the fact that their tribal histories do
not speak of famine until recent times, as is the case with many
hunters and food gatherers, It is, even to-day, a catastrophe for
the Indians when, as in 1941, there exists a scarcity of the acorns
from the oak-trees of the San Joaquin Valley. These acorns
furnish the most important staple food to the members of the Yokuts
tribe. The records of this event say : " Before the white man
brought his civilization to this area the acorn meats and acorn flour
could be kept indefinitely. But now they become frequently grub-
infested after only a few months. Almost every Indian camp
and there are still hundreds keeps a big store of dried acorns
in wicker willow baskets."
Perhaps the most important harvesting products of the North
American Indian tribes are the wild rice and wild oats of the
Lake States region. As early as 1683 Father Hennepin reported
in his diary : " In the lakes grew an abundance of wild oats,
without any culture or sowing. The old Indians to-day tell many
interesting stories in connexion with the rice-fields and that many
bloody battles were fought between the Chippewas and Sioux for
the possession of the wild rice beds/'
According to legend, the wild rice was " provided by the Great
Spirit to keep the Indians well and strong," and they named
many streams, lakes, and villages after it. In the Chippewa tongue
the month August means " the month of harvesting wild rice "
(Mah-no-nim-e-kay-ge-sis). The harvesting of the wild rice marks
the central point of the economic life of most Sioux and Algonquin
tribes of this region. Shortly before the harvest, as Burns reports,
the green standing rice-stalks are tied into bunches by the women.
This is done to protect the grain from injury by winds or loss to
water-fowl, and also to facilitate the subsequent harvesting. When
it is ripe it is gathered in canoes, which are pushed through the
rice-fields by means of paddles or long forked poles. The Ojibway
have legends telling of a horrible time of famine, and of their prayers
to the Great Spirit, who finally appeared to the medicine man,
telling him : " Look to the seeds sharp as spears. Sweet food is
within." This advice was accompanied by detailed directions
for the gathering, the hulling, and the parching of the grains.
In appreciation of this miracle, the Ojibway hold their annual
100 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
harvest ritual in honour of the Great Spirit during the rice moon.
After the rice has been harvested it is thrashed with sticks, dried
in the sun, parched, cleaned, freed from any chaff, and then stored
away. The nutlike sweetness of the kernel makes wild rice
extremely delicious.
In contrast to the hunters and food gatherers who roam within
the tribal territory and live from hand to mouth, these peoples
store food during times of plenty, in anticipation of times of need.
Their living- quarters are more solid than those of the older
acquisitive economic group. They stay at one place, namely near
the harvesting field, which comprises often many hundreds of
square miles. Whatever types of fruit are harvested by whatever
tribes, the shape of their form of economy has exerted the strongest
influence upon the development of all their cultural possessions.
Most important are their caches and storage houses for the safe-
guarding of the harvested fruits.
Although they have no planned agriculture, their attitude
towards the wild plant is different from that of the food gatherers
and hunters ; it is similar to the mental approach of the agricul-
tural peoples. In songs and ceremonies the harvested fruit is
celebrated and asked to multiply, for the harvesters are vitally
interested in its survival. In western Australia shoots of some
wild yams are put back into the soil during the harvest ; and
the Ojibway strew some of the harvested rice back into the water
so that it may help them towards the next harvest. The Pacific
owners of wild coconut palms clear the soil to make room for
new shoots when an old tree has been felled.
The harvesting field becomes the centre of tribal life and of
social activity. The security of subsistence is responsible for
the increasing number of tribal members : the communities are
much larger than those of the food gatherers and hunters.
Winnebago settlements of three hundred are no exception, and
the communities of the Obotos and Wakatimi of New Guinea
consist of a thousand people who live off the wild sago palm.
In America the wild-rice region has been the centre of expan-
sion of the Sioux and Algonquin tribes. In Polynesia, the wild
bread-fruit tree was responsible for the migration of many ethnic
waves.
Only these peoples who harvest without sowing, but who harvest
in exactly the same manner as do the agricultural tribes, can be
regarded as the original inventors of agriculture. In addition,
the economy of the harvesters offered the prerequisite for the
invention of cattle breeding. The hunters and food gatherers,
THIS FRIENDLY EARTH
IOI
continuously harassed by the need of the moment, cannot afford
a friendly attitude towards their prey animals. In order to survive
they have to kill whatever is in sight. The harvesters' main sub-
sistence, however, is guaranteed by the harvesting fruit. They can
look upon the wild animal with a different and
friendly attitude.
Thus the peoples of the harvesting culture
alone have fulfilled the prerequisites for a de-
velopment of agriculture and the domestication
of animals. It is very likely that the arts of
agriculture and of stock breeding have de-
veloped from this progressive, acquisitive form
of economy. Perfected in the course of history
throughout suitable regions of the globe, this
economy was finally united with the character-
istic feature of the high cultures the tilling of
the soil with the plough. The exact place
where ideal conditions led to the invention
of agriculture cannot be determined to-day,
although many indications seem to suggest the
southern or central region of Asia.
Since we have certain proof from the early
neolithicum of the existence of agriculture we Value -
can date back its earliest developments to about
the fifth millennium before the birth of Christ.
The scientists Heine- Geldern and Menghin have
determined the so-called " culture of the cylin-
drical hoe " (Walzenbeilkultur) as the oldest neo-
lithic basis of productive agricultural economy
which spread all over the earth from its pre-
sumably oldest places of distribution in southern
Central Asia, probably China. Its name is derived
from a mostly edged stone tool, the cylindrically
shaped hoe, a hatchet with a circular transverse section, a sharpened
blade, and a round or conical back.
The distribution of this culture is, indeed, of global proportions.
Its mighty waves penetrated Asia and Europe, including all regions
of eastern and southern Asia, and the Melanesian island groups.
Though determined by local conditions, the agricultural economies
of the cylindrical-hoe culture were most often combined with the
raising or breeding of pigs. This means that if wild boars were
obtainable they were caught and possibly bred ; mostly, however,
they were kept in hurdles until needed for food. This explains
(Top) FIELD HOE
WITH IRON BLADE
1500 cowrie
shells
Cameroons
After Thorbecke
(Bottom) HOE
WITH STONE
BLADE
New Guinea
Museum of
Ethnology , Cologne
102
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
the fact that at most places of excavation the pigs' bones dis-
covered were boars' bones rather than those of domesticated
species.
As to the types of earliest plants systematically cultivated by man,
it is uncertain whether they were shrubs, bulbs, tubers, or trees.
Werth believes that in South Asia the banana-tree
may be considered the oldest domesticated plant.
According to Brunton, the most ancient cultivated
grain was the emmer wheat. It was used in
Egyptian agriculture as far back as 5000 B.C. It
is hardly possible to determine the age of culti-
vated bulbs or shrubs by means of prehistoric
findings but these findings furnish more accurate
facts when it comes to the oldest cultivated grains.
Drawings of ears of corn and of cultivated grains
dating back to the early Neolithic Age have been
discovered ; and the excavations at Anau, in Trans -
caspia, have proved that the cultivation of barley
was known as early as 4500 B.C. Among the
cultivated plants of the Neolithic Lake Dwellers
of Switzerland were the midget wheat, the emmer,
the one-corned grain, two species of barley, and
one kind of millet. Furthermore, they cultivated
peas and lentils, flax, poppy-seed, and a type of
grafted apple-tree.
Whatever the identity of the oldest cultivated
fruits or plants may have been, the earliest form
of agriculture, still ignorant of the plough, knew
only the hoe and, occasionally, still used the
ancient digging stick. The name of this form of
economy has been derived from the hoe, which
usually consisted of a handle with a stone, shell,
or iron blade.
Even to-day the distribution of the hoe cul-
tures is on a tremendous scale, with tropical
Africa, America, Indonesia, and Oceania as its
principal regions. Among the most frequently cultivated plants
are bulbs and tubers, like yams, manioc, batata, taro, and potato.
Among the grains, maize (corn), rice, and durrha are the most
prominent. The number of species cultivated by one tribe is,
as a rule, quite limited. One single type of plant usually is so
dominant that it alone furnishes the principal basis of economic
existence. This does not mean that this principal plant is
NEOLITHIC
HOES
(Top) Found at
Sigerslev,
Denmark
After Ddchelette
(Bottom)
Cylindrical Hoe
Stone
After O. Menghin
THIS FRIENDLY EARTH
103
Also
not supplemented by other produce of lesser importance,
spices and narcotic plants are cultivated almost anywhere.
If we ask the primitive agriculturists about the origin of their
kitchen plants and the age of their economy they will all answer
that their ancestors knew plants and agriculture from times un-
known, as the ancient myths and sagas prove. The Tupi claim
HOEING THE FIELD
Africa
Photo Museum of Ethnology, Cologne
that the manioc shrub emerged blooming from a grave. The
Bakairi believe that the same plant was given to them by the
bogadu fish, living in a near-by river. Gods and ghosts, animals
and heroes share the mythical glamour of having blessed humanity
with the fruits and plants of agriculture, those all-important gifts
from above.
There can be no doubt that the invention of agriculture marks
one of the greatest contributions woman Has made toward the
welfare of mankind. It was woman who in the acquisitive economy
already took care of the provision of the family with vegetal food ;
it was woman who, consequently, put the great new invention of
sowing and planting into practice. Of course, the male habit
104 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
of hunting did not stop with the introduction of agriculture, but
continued as in the times of old, even though the chief nourish-
ment of the tribes was taken care of by cultivated plants.
The clearing of a new field, the first planting or sowing, and
even the determination of the spot destined to become a field,
are often the occasion for elaborate festivities, especially because
the whole village population takes active part in agricultural
work.
A STORE-HOUSE ON HORO-WHENUA LAKE
New Zealand
After Taylor
When it comes to deciding on a proper spot for a new field
the Nad'a of Western Flores (Sunda Islands), for instance, take
no chances. They use their indispensable oracle, a bamboo stick
called tibo, which when allowed to crack in the fire, ' tells/ by
the size and direction of the crack, what they should do. They
address the tibos in the following way : " Tibo, we wish to lay
out a new field. If there is something wrong with the path leading
to it or if the plot contains anything harmful please tell us by
cracking at your upper right ! " If the answer is satisfactory
the work is started without delay.
When a tribe of the hoe culture has decided where the new
field is to be everybody celebrates by singing and dancing, often
under the leadership of the medicine man. Next morning they
THIS FRIENDLY EARTH 105
start out to commence the work. A section of forest, bush, or
steppe is cleared ; trees are cut down with the stone-bladed hoe,
with the roots remaining in the soil. The cleared-away branches
and shrubs are burnt on the spot ; the ashes are raked into the
ground to serve as fertilizer. The women have the picnic baskets
ready, while the entire male population does the heavy work.
When the field is cleared, often after days of hard work, the
women take over the planting. At this point, all kinds of magical
performances serve to safeguard the growth of the all-important
plant. The Nad'a, again consulting their tibo y have an especially
appealing way of inviting the " souls of the cultivated plants
to assemble on the field." " Tibo," they say to the little
bamboo stick, " we have now cleared the
whole big field. All weeds have been
pulled up, all shrubs are burned. It is
clean. We now invite the souls to come
to this place, laden with rice, so that we
may have a rich harvest. We want the
beams of the storage-houses to break under
the weight of the rice and the floors to cave
in. Please, Tibo, promise us such a har-
vest. If you say yes, crack to your lower STORAGE CONTAINERS
left ! " It is now up to the women to put Ovambo, Africa
the seeds into the soil. Photo Museum of
Among the South American Indians, Ethnology, Cologne
pieces of mandioca stems are planted in
the soil so that they may grow into the mandioca shrub. The
ripe tubers are harvested as needed, and a new slip is immediately
put back into the spot from which the grown vegetable was
removed. The plantations are kept in extremely good shape, and
many a white man has been impressed by their neatness. A
Christian bishop, visiting the native fields near the Xire river, in
Portuguese East Africa, remarked : " I thought to be able to teach
these black fellows a few things ; now I see how much I can learn
from them."
Despite this care, it is still the rule among most tribes of the
hoe cultures to abandon the fields after one or two harvests and
to move on to clear a new field, although some Congo tribes and
also some Melanesians now apply a regular succession of crops.
The African sequence may, for instance, be the following : beans
on a newly cleared plantation, with spiked millet sown after the
harvest. Manioc shoots are planted among the millet ; the
growing tubers are usable for about two years. When they begin
IO6 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
to lignify a new field is cleared elsewhere and the succession of
crops begins anew.
Many primitive tribes of the hoe culture are well aware of the
benefits of fertilizing. Some of the East African Bantu use cattle
dung for this purpose. Livingstone noticed that the Zambesi
peoples fertilized their fields with charred weeds. The North
American Indian tribes of New England used fish and shells.
The Incas of Peru knew the beneficial effects of guano dug into
the fields ; the ancient Mexicans made use of human excrement.
The flower garden as a manifestation of aesthetic taste has its
earliest origin in the hoe culture. Vines and blossoms are planted
on the rims of the fields or, as among the Papua, between the fruit-
trees. These first efforts reached perfection in the floating gardens
in the Lake of Mexico and of the legendary Queen Semiramis.
The other branch of productive economy which has since its
inception moulded world economy and world history is the
domestication of animals and the breeding of live stock, especially
cattle.
One might assume that the art of animal domestication and
cattle breeding developed out of the hoe culture. This is not
true. The oldest data on domestication, as well as the structure
of the hoe culture itself, militate against this supposition. The culture
and mentality of the herdsmen are diametrically different from those
of the agriculturists. The fact that we may find an occasional
flock of tamed animals in some present-day villages of the hoe
culture does not prove that they have been bred there. They
were merely caught in the wilderness and tamed.
Chickens and pigs may very likely claim a special position,
because they are non-migratory. Neolithic findings show us that
wild jungle fowl and wild boars were kept and corralled in large
numbers until the demands of the kitchen necessitated their
killing. However, the practice of regular animal breeding encoun-
tered among peoples of the hoe culture was adopted from the
herdsmen.
The dog, the oldest domesticated companion of man, played
the same role during the Palaeolithic Age. His forefather is the
wolf. The' oldest centre of the dog's domestication lay in northern
Asia. The dog migrated from there to Europe during the ice age.
Already domesticated, he arrived in America with the first human
settlers.
The breeding of horses, cattle, and sheep developed at places
where the suitable wild species were abundant. The high plains
within and northward of the central Asiatic mountain chains
THIS FRIENDLY EARTH 107
offered favourable conditions. Flohr and Menghin believe that
the regions of western Turkestan up to the plateaux of Tibet
were the scene of the development of cattle breeding ; and, indeed,
even the present-day type of Tibetan yak breeding has all the
ear-marks of a very ancient pastoral culture. The earliest known
domesticated species of cattle is the long-horned type, which can
be traced back to the wild species of the Asiatic aurox. The
domestication of sheep, and later of goats, also seems to have
originated in that particular part of the globe.
North of the region of the first cattle breeders, in the Altai
Mountains and in the steppes of the Kirgis and Barabas, the
culture of the horse and camel breeders found its earliest develop-
ment. From there it expanded, as an unbroken complex, to
the west as far as the steppes of south-eastern Russia and to the
Caucasus ; in the East it reached the Gobi Desert. Although
horses and camels were originally used as beasts of burden and
as providers of milk, no independent economic form could possibly
develop from the unstable form of life of these tribes, who were
sometimes even unable to provide enough food for their animals.
Consequently, we find that the breeders of riding animals live
practically without exception in symbiosis with tribes adhering
to the economic forms of harvesting, of agriculture, and of cattle
breeding. There can be no doubt, however, that the breeding of
horses was customary on the plateaux of Central Asia as early as
the fifth pre-Christian millennium that is, towards the end of the
European ice age.
The culture of the cattle-breeding peoples proved to be of
world-embracing influence, whether actively through the migration
of the tribes, or passively through the mere adoption of their
economic form by others. Archaeological discoveries, especially
those described by Pumpelly, have thrown much light on the
structure of the oldest cattle-breeding cultures. The findings
at Anau, near Ashabad, in Transcaspia, disclosed at a forty-
five-foot depth a lower layer with very well preserved remnants
of a cattle-breeding culture dating back to about 3500 B.C. Since
evidences of barley and wheat as cultivated plants have been found
in equally ancient habitats it may be assumed that the Anau culture
represents already a blending of the agricultural economy and the
cattle-breeding economy, and that the latter is of an even older age.
The diffusion of the cattle-breeding cultures from their original
places of development took place by active migrations, chiefly in
a southerly direction. Europe and Eastern Asia, although adopting
the principles of cattle breeding, did not take over the whole
108 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
cultural complex of the herdsmen's culture. The southernmost
representatives of the Asiatic cattle breeders are the Toda in the
Nilgiri Hills of southern India. The main stream of the herds-
men's migration went to Iran, to Mesopotamia, to Syria, and to
Africa. In Africa proper the herdsmen spread from the North-
east to Egypt and, in fewer numbers, north across the continent
to the Canary Islands. Their strongest waves of migration went
to East Africa and to the south, avoiding tropical Central Africa.
The animals bred were principally cattle, serving as both Beasts of
burden and mounts.
Thus, the main African form of economy is the breeding of
cattle, while Asia favours the breeding of sheep and yak. As a
rule, the herd is considered a manifestation of wealth which
should not be diminished by slaughterings without urgent reasons.
Consequently milk, hair, wool, and dung are the principal products,
with less emphasis put on meat.
The two main branches of productive economy, agriculture
and animal breeding, developed out of the economic form of
harvesting. They met and merged in vast regions of the globe.
Only in their final merger were all prerequisites for an economic
conquest of the earth achieved. Yet if it had not been for the
invention of the plough the utilization of immense spaces of the
earth would not have been accomplished to make possible the feed-
ing of ever-growing populations. The invention of the plough
and the harnessing of animal power mainly cattle and, later,
horses to pull it enabled man to lay out larger fields, suitable
as bases for a truly productive form of agriculture. The plough
itself is an application of the mechanical principle of the hoe and
of a peculiar spade form of the digging stick. Its earliest evidences
go back to the third millennium B.C. It was known to the farm-
ing peoples of the Danube region with their so-called culture of
* band-ceramics/ During the same epoch it was already used by
the Indo-European tribes.
The first development of the plough culture occurred at but
one time in history and at but one place before it spread to other
regions of the globe. The place of its first inception was, most
probably, the region of the high cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt.
In its most ancient form the plough consists of wood in the
shape of two forked branches, although even the oldest Neolithic
specimen indicates the use of a ploughshare fashioned of stone.
This is not surprising, since the hoe itself was equipped with a
blade of stone or shell. Even to-day primitive wooden ploughs
are still in use in some regions, for instance in the east and south-
THIS FRIENDLY EARTH
ICQ
east of Europe. The frequent supposition that the invention
of the wheel or of the cart had anything to do with the invention
of the use of the plough is not correct. Originally the plough
PRIMITIVE PLOUGH
was used without a wheel. Even to-day the ploughs of the Batak
of Sumatra and of the Chinese and Japanese are not equipped with
wheels.
The plough was unknown in ancient America, probably on
WOODEN PLOUGH
Kabyles
Photo Museum of Ethnology , Cologne
account of the non-existence of draught animals. In the American
high cultures of Mexico and Peru the economic form of the hoe
cultures developed into horticulture and the building of terrace-
shaped fields.
The most characteristic features of the plough culture are the
systematic fertilizing of the soil and the development of intricate
irrigation systems. Not before the end of the eighteenth century
did sweeping innovations modernize the ancient plough. Then
finally the wooden parts were replaced by iron or steel. Several
ploughs were combined in a single unit. Later ploughs came
to be operated by mechanical power, such as steam-engines and
motors.
HO THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
Thus ends the saga of economy, the story of the development
of one of the most important forces which make it possible for
MAN-DRAWN PLOUGH
Ancient Egypt (El Kah)
After Treidler-Herodot
men to live in ever-increasing numbers on the earth. The plough
and the knowledge of cattle breeding have not only enabled the
peoples who own the great global granaries and live-stock resources
to feed themselves, but they have also made them trustees of the
needs of modern mankind as a whole.
CHAPTER FIVE
Invention and the Early Trades
GOETHE SAYS IN Faust: " No created mind can penetrate the
innermost sanctum of nature. " In recent years this has per-
haps become no longer true. Our ability to photograph cellular
NAVAHO WOMAN WEAVING RUG
By courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History, New York
growth and our newly acquired knowledge of the forces controlling
the universe have enabled us to lift the veil from some of the
fundamental secrets of creation to such a degree that warning
voices like Winston Churchill's express the great twentieth-century
fear of our very progress : " The Dark Ages may return, the Stone
Age may return on the gleaming wings of science, and what might
now shower immeasurable material blessings upon mankind may
even bring about its total destruction. "
112 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
Were these dark ages really so ' dark ' ? The difference between
them and our time lies in the attempt of modern man to elevate
himself to the role of master of the universe. In bygone ages
nature was the omnipotent master of man, who derived his know-
ledge and his early skills from the phenomena be observed in his
natural surroundings. He was the apprentice of the greater forces
around him. But even then the functions of his brain enabled
him to create spiritual and material possessions worthy of the term
* Homo sapiens ' and completely out of reach of the ingenuities
of the animal kingdom.
Elephants have been observed ripping branches from trees
with which to strike pursuing dogs. We are familiar with the
achievements of the beaver, that master-builder. We know of
the tiny American wasp that uses a pebble, as a regular tool, to
pound the protecting soil over the pit containing its eggs but
are these animal activities evidences of planned thinking ? Are
these intelligent uses of natural objects actually inventions ?
Shrewd as they are, these animals take their tools just as nature
provides them. They remain ignorant of man's art of manufacturing
things out of the materials of nature by giving them new shapes
and new possibilities of application. The animals may be users,
but they are not inventors.
Since the ice age man knew how to transform the raw materials
he found into tools that raised his living standards to a level far
above that of his lowly brethren, the animals.
No Aristotle, Galileo, Volta, Edison, or Bell of the primitive
past can be individually recognized and honoured as an early
inventor. No one man's * brainstorm ' was responsible for the
first stone axe, the first woven basket, the first windbreak, or the
first fur coat. All these inventions were links in a chain forged
by the gradual perfection of the experiences of long generations
of unsung inventors. They were the result of many different
combinations. We have no right to assume that every prehistoric
individual was a genius who invented for himself whatever he
needed.
No commonplace is less defined than the saying, " Necessity
is the mother of invention." Climatic conditions, psychological
preparedness, and migrations of ideas and of peoples were among
the decisive factors that promoted or hampered the diffusion of
technical knowledge. Snow-shoes and sledges could not be
invented in the jungle ; fans and ore-melting furnaces could not
originate in the ironless arctic. A Bushman genius, however
bright, was not ready to work out the loom or the storage-house ;
INVENTION AND THE EARLY TRADES 113
the Australian aborigines could not make felt or conceive of sleeping
in a hammock. Although the possession of these skills would have
meant improvement in their living standards, their minds were not
yet ready for them. Even if taught these secrets they would
abandon them quickly, just as the primitive Pygmies look down
upon the agricultural Negroes around them.
The independent invention of a cultural element or the adoption
of an invention from another culture have one prerequisite in
common : that a psychological preparedness must exist in the
mentality of the prospective adopters ; otherwise a new cultural
possession will be neither invented nor accepted. Independent
invention and adoption are distinguished from each other by the
simple fact that invention is the result of creative process, while
adoption indicates merely a receptive nature. A few examples
may serve to illustrate this point. The structure of the Japanese
culture, for instance, was such that Japan adopted many cultural
elements from Western civilization even the most modern
weapons while the cultures of, let us say, the Bushmen, the
Australians, or the Fuegians never would have been ready to accept
such inventions. The gap between the two cultures is too great.
On the other hand, primitive cultures have accepted some
elements from foreign civilizations without understanding their
original meanings. In Africa a safety-pin maybe an ear ornament ;
a gramophone a materialized choir of ghosts. A European watch
may be an amusing pattern for circular ornaments.
Another point which is worth stressing in regard to the diffusion
of cultural elements is the difference between invention and
modification, the first being something entirely new ; the second,
merely an improvement of an older invention. It is often very
difficult to determine the original place of an early invention.
Diffusion has taken place on such a tremendous scale that we find
to-day, in entirely different regions of the world, cultural centres
where not only tools, houses, and objects of daily use are completely
alike, but also where they are complemented by the same religious,
economic, ethical, and social conceptions.
Most technical possessions of our modern civilization in one
way or another have their roots in the ancient inventions reaching
back in an unbroken chain to the dawn of time. Although many
of the old techniques have been outmoded by perfected manu-
facturing processes, a great number of man's earliest possessions
continue to be used to-day in the same manner or with but little
change ; others were used by primitive man for centuries before
the white man learnt about them.
114 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
Among the discoveries and inventions of North and South
American Indians made before the arrival of the white man
Nordenskiold listed especially the recognition and utilization
of food plants like the maize, the manioc, the potato, the sun-
flower, the artichoke, and the bean. The Indians domesticated
the llama, alpaca, guinea-pig, musk duck, and turkey. Cocaine
as well as cotton was known to them. The hammock is their
invention, as is the rubber ball, and a method of manufacturing
waterproof fabrics. They brewed deadly poisons like curare and
obtained poison gas from cayenne pepper, for use as a weapon
of war.
Long before Coue and his " every day, in every way," the
medicine-men of the jungle cured their patients by auto-suggestive
methods. At a time when white surgeons lost 90 per cent, of their
patients in attempts at trepanation North African natives knew how
to open the human skull with complete safety. They were equally
skilled performers of the Caesarean operation. Centuries before
the Nobel Prize was awarded to Wagner- Jauregg for his method of
treating general paralysis of the insane, caused by syphilis, with
inoculations of malaria East African natives sent their syphilitics
* into the swamps ' where they contracted the beneficial fever.
And, corresponding to our manifestations of * utter luxury/
native telephones built from pumpkin shells and rat skins are an
old African possession. Eskimos telephone with skin-covered
containers over distances as great as one hundred and twenty-five
feet. Air-conditioning towers of the type described by Marco Polo
as " artificial lungs, shaped like squat staples," are still common-
place in the Bahrein of to-day. Modern dark spectacles have
nothing on primitive eye-shades. In the Arctic split bones or pieces
of wood protect the eyes from snow-blindness ; woven eye-shades
of all shapes are common in Melanesia and Polynesia and in South
America, with thin black-felt veils as their Tibetan counterparts.
Hundreds of generations of artisans laid the foundations for our
modern material luxuries when they went about manufacturing the
first objects of comfortable living from stone, wood, bone, plant
fibre, and animal skins. A study of at least the major early industries
is interesting indeed, because it tells the story of the beginnings of
the things of which we are proud to-day.
When the layman strolls through the collections of any ethno-
logical museum he is confronted with a multitude of objects manu-
factured from materials of such diversity that he may give up the
attempt to answer for himself the question that might have in-
spired his visit : " What were the earliest handicrafts known and
INVENTION AND THE EARLY TRADES
what materials were used by the oldest craftsmen of human
history ? "
The objects accidentally preserved through the millenniums do
indeed easily lead us astray. Too often we forget that only those
materials whose very struc-
ture made them withstand
the decay that comes to
everything made of ' dust/
be it the flesh of man or
the fibres of plants, could
survive the ages. Long be-
fore the Stone Age another
LIL LIL CLUB
Western South Wales, Australia
After F. D. McCarthy
working material, wood, was
as abundant as it is to-day and as subject to decay. From the
brethren of prehistoric man, from the now extinct Tasmanians,
and from the living Australians and their food-gathering relatives
of other continents, we can easily learn that at the dawn of time
the Age of Wood prevailed. If we assume that the Ages of Iron,
WOODEN FOOD-BOWL
Island Truk (Carolines)
Museum of Ethnology, Cologne
WOODEN TROUGH FOR CRUSHING
CASSAVA LEAVES
After G. Tessmann
of Bronze, and of Polished Stone lasted about three thousand
years each we can safely state that the preceding Age of Chipped
Stone and its probable forerunner, the Age of Wood, extended
over longer periods. This does not mean that the functions of
wooden tools and implements were in later eras completely re-
placed by other materials. The contrary is the case, as our
modern furnishings show. It only means that wood was the
earliest working material available and the easiest to tackle with
the existing tools.
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
The universal use of wood dominated the material possessions
of the oldest man, just as is the case to-day in many regions. Since
there were available no adequate tools to shape
the wood as nature furnished it into pieces of
finer carpentry, the working of the more pliable
bark assumed great importance, especially when
it came to building larger objects like wind-
breaks and canoes. Shells, animal teeth l bones
and crude stones helped to fashion the desired
pieces. It is astounding to see what primitive man
could and still does achieve in his woodwork
without the benefit of metal blades and nails.
Many houses of primitive man, even in higher
cultures, are joined together by binding. Bark
objects are either stitched together with sinews
or fibres, or glued and cemented in a surpris-
HEAD-SHAPED CUP ingly durable fashion. Large wooden containers,
like signal drums or boats, are fashioned from
solid trunks and hollowed out by fire.
About the oldest wooden tool of man is
the digging stick, his indispensable helper on
daily food-gathering expeditions. It is a simple
with a pointed end, occasionally forked and
in the fire. Derived from it is the wooden
Wood
Southern Congo
Museum of
Ethnology, Cologne
wooden branch
often hardened
spear which served in the hunt, the other early food-gathering
WOODEN BOWL
Southern Congo
Museum of Ethnology, Cologne
CARVED WOODEN CLOTHES RACK
South Seas
Museum of Ethnology, Cologne
activity of primitive man. The points of wooden spears are
hardened over a flame to such a degree that they are sometimes
superior to those of flint-stone or even metal. The Asiatic method
of soaking bamboo spears in oil and hardening them in hot ashes
INVENTION AND THE EARLY TRADES 1 17
results in metal-hard points. During recent uprisings in the Far
East such spears have effectively competed with the white man's
weapons.
Derived from the parrying stick that warded off a blow, the shield
is a later addition to the family of wooden implements. It has
undergone many variations of shape and material as, for instance,
the African leather shields. Another multi-shaped weapon is the
wooden club, used by all primitive tribes in scores of forms from
the simple root or branch to the ceremonial dance clubs of the
South Seas, which are painted and engraved and trimmed with
tassels, fringes and feathers. Even the Australians have specimens
of graceful and efficient shape, decorated with a multitude of
geometrical engravings. Their boomerang or ' come-back-club '
makes use of a complicated physical principle ; with each of its
ends on a different plane, it utilizes the principle of the screw.
Most of the primitive household gadgets of wood are not very
different from our own. Among them are spoons and ladles, bowls
and plates, and the like. Even wooden forks occasionally are used,
although in limited areas and not as an ordinary eating tool, but as
a ceremonial object. In the three-spiked form it is used among the
cannibals of the South Seas for the handling of human flesh.
Finger-bowls, trays, and boxes of redwood belong to the equipment
of the Californian Yurok household. Head-rests, stools, and large
storage-boxes are found among large groups of peoples on all
continents, and smartly carved African Tikar sandals have all the
ear-marks of elegance and can be compared very favourably with
our modern beach models. The magnificent house posts, dance
masks, drums, and household containers of Polynesia are all carved
without the benefit of metal tools, the only technical aids being
shells, coarse fish skins, sand, and pumice. Since the African
natives knew about the smelting of iron even before the white man,
they have achieved, in their famed bowls, house posts, furnishings,
and idols, such perfection of form and workmanship that the native
art academies of the jungle nowadays attract students from the
white world.
Although the techniques of wood manufacture became more
clearly differentiated in the high cultures, especially with the
addition of the plane and the grooving of fitted parts, they did not
change in principle. The primitive wooden animal trap, bow and
arrow, and countless other wooden articles have not only inspired
imitation by the white man but have also served often as ' blue
prints ' for their later manufacture in other materials.
The most easily managed wooden raw material is bark. Bark
n8
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
built the earliest home of man, the windbreak ; bark makes the
baskets and containers of many tribes ; it is to some people the
most important material of all. The entire material possessions of
WOODEN LADLE
African Gold Coast
Sammlung fur Vdlkerkunde der Universitdt Zurich
the Indians of Labrador depend, except for animal skins, on two
working materials : bark and wood. They could not obtain the
skins of their game animals without the help of their birch-bark
canoes and their wooden sleds . Prac-
tically their entire household equip-
ment is fashioned from birch bark,
neatly * tailored ' in geometrical
fashion. This bark is cut with
beaver teeth and stitched together
with split pine roots, animal sinews,
or leather strings. Glues of resin
make their vessels watertight, and
scraped ornaments depicting animal
figures, mythical characters, and
geometrical shapes decorate them in
a pleasant effect of contrasting dark
and light brown. Thickened blue-
berry jam, bear grease, and the famed
pemmican are kept safe from insects,
dirt, or moisture in covered con-
tainers which are equally sturdy and
pretty to look at.
Perhaps the most important use
of bark is the transformation into
bark cloth by the process of soaking and pounding, which results in
a smooth material fit for clothing a substitute for woven fabrics.
This type of bark cloth, sometimes used in the more advanced
cultures but unknown to the hunters and food gatherers, is manu-
factured in Africa and Madagascar. Its most important centres of
distribution are in Indonesia and Polynesia, where it is known as
BARK BASKET
Bathurst Island, Australia
After F. D. McCarthy
INVENTION AND THE EARLY TRADES
tapa. It may have been from Indonesia and Polynesia that the
knowledge of it migrated to North and South America. It was
known to many prehistoric peoples of Europe and Asia.
Tapa is manufactured from the bark of trees containing bast,
such as the bread-fruit-tree, the fig-tree, and the mulberry-tree.
After the bark has been stripped off the trunk it is softened by
soaking and then pounded into a light, pliable fabric with the help
of special clubs, beaters, or mallets. The finished product is finer
ORNAMENTED PEMMICAN BASKET OF BIRCH BARK
Montagnais-Naskapi, Labrador
Collection Julius E. Lips
in texture than many a product of the loom. In Polynesia it is
decorated with multicoloured ornaments of singular regularity and
beauty, sometimes painted, sometimes printed on with stencils of
wood or bamboo. In Africa the bark mallet is often made from a
part of an elephant tusk. Pulverized redwood is beaten in as a dye.
The main use of bark cloth is as a material for wearing apparel.
The North-west American Indians use cedar bark, which they
loosen from the tree with bone scoops and pound with fluted bone
beaters. Many of their painted dance blankets are manufactured
from cedar-bark cloth, and the bark fibres are often woven into
their blankets made chiefly of dog's and goat's hair.
The method of fashioning bark cloth from beaten bast has
influenced, if not inspired, the Chinese invention of paper, the
earliest samples of which consist of mulberry bast with added plant
fibres. It also is responsible for the invention of the Egyptian
papyrus, a product obtained by the pounding and gluing of reeds.
120
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
MALLETS FOR THE MANUFACTURE
OF BARK CLOTH
Equally ancient as the use of wood and bark for the fashioning of
man's oldest belongings is the universal utilization of bone, horn,
shells, and animal teeth as earliest tools. In the older Palaeolithic
Age bone knives, shafts fashioned from horn, scrapers and planes
of shell were abundant. Entire prehistoric periods have been
named after the dominant bone
tools of these eras. Sockets of
bone joints served as containers
for paints and greases." The
tooth-studded jaws of the cave
bear made effective weapons.
Harpoon hooks, awls, spoons,
scrapers, and needles were
fashioned from bones in ex-
actly the same manner that
primitive tribes of to-day
utilize the same material for
the same purposes.
Bone awls serve to-day's
Australians in the manufacture
of coiled baskets ; pig's ribs are
' needles ' on the Santa Cruz
Islands ; fur scrapers made of
thigh-bones are a universal
tool of the American Indians
from California to Labrador.
Bone knives are customary in
the jungles of eastern Bolivia,
with a monkey thigh - bone
serving as a handle and the
Central Celebes
tooth of the hochi hare as a
Santa Cruz
After Islands
Nordenskiold Museum of
Ethnology, Cologne blade. The Canadian hunters
have a similar tool, with a
beaver tooth at the work end and a handle of wood or bone. Tools
of this type have not undergone any changes in appearance ; they
are used to-day as they have been since the dawn of time.
The chipped-stone implements among the earliest Palaeolithic
findings show such purposeful workmanship that we must assume
that even they were the results of previous periods of development.
The word ' Palaeolithicum ' itself (from the Greek palaios, ' old ' ;
and lithos, ' stone ') stands for the conception of the age of the * old '
or chipped-stone implements, while the younger ' Neolithicum '
is the period of the ' younger ' or polished stone tools.
TAPA (BARK CLOTH)
Fiji Archipelago
Museum of Ethnology, Cologne
WOODEN
SPEAR-POINT
Clacton-on-Sea
Early Palaeolithic
Age
After Hazzledine
Warren
PALAEOLITHIC
BONE DAGGER
After
Lartet-Christy
BONE TOOLS
Bone Tools of the Fuegians
After K. Weide
Fur Scraper
(Caribou Leg-bone)
Montagnais-Naskapi
Collection A f ter
Julius E. Lips
Neolithic
Bone Needle
and Awl
Menghin
122
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
The oldest unpolished stone implements show shell-like chip-
pings of great diversity. Their purpose can easily be determined
by the shapes man knew how to give them. They were scrapers,
scorpers, blades, and the like, whose wooden handles, shafts,
etc., could not survive the ages. Arrow points of stone are less
ancient.
Stone knives are used to-day by many Eskimo and Indian tribes.
They may be hafted, with the
blade inserted in a wooden handle
and tied or glued in place, or
simply made with a smoothed
end of the stone itself. The
California Indians use unhafted
flaked knives of quartz or obsi-
dian for skinning large game and
smaller blades of the same stones
set in wooden handles for their
general kitchen use. The ancient
Aztecs used obsidian knives for
their religious sacrifice of human
beings. The stone knives, still
COCONUT used by many present-day races
OPENER f r their ritual circumcisions, are
Wooden handle * surviving reminder of the age
with Tridacna- of this custom. Stone axes have
shell blade been found in archaeological ex-
Bismarck cavations in South America.
Archipelago Stone saws of the type used by
After Frobenius the prehistoric Lake Dwellers of
Switzerland are still in use among
These consist of a wooden base with inserted
stone splinters for teeth. Borers of stone are still customary even
in the Indian high culture. Stone hatchets are joined to straight
or curved wooden handles by cement, putty, or resin, or tied to the
shaft with strings.
Another important utilization of stone for household implements
are the slabs and grinders on which primitive housewives all over
the earth chop and mince their grains and vegetables. One large
stone serves as a base, with a smaller, round stone as a pestle.
From the harvesting tribes of North America to the agriculturists
of Africa and the Pacific Islands, such slabs and mortars are in
general use.
Some tribes even manufacture decorative trinkets of allure from
KNIVES KNOWN
AS HIRAZI OR
AIKUDIN
Sirione Indians,
Eastern Bolivia
After
R. N. Wegner
primitive tribes.
INVENTION AND THE EARLY TRADES
123
stone. The Tuareg and the tribes of the western Sudan have black
marble bracelets of great regularity and beauty.
CHIPPED-STONE TOOLS
Early Palaeolithic Stage
After O. Menghin
STONE POINTS
Younger Palaeolithic
Stage
After O. Menghin
SPEAR-POINTS
Early Younger
Palaeolithic Palaeolithic
Stage Stage
NEOLITHIC TOOLS
Cylindri- Axe-head
cal Hoe of Flint-
stone
After O. Menghin
The people of Oceania are famed for their precious and artistic
clubs of basalt, nephrite and other valuable stones. These imple-
ments are often decorated with carved images and serve as symbols
124 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
of chieftainship or sovereignty. The dark-green nephrite sceptres
of the Maori are among the most artistic show-pieces of our modern
museums.
Among the handsomest pieces of native craftsmanship which we
can admire during our strolls through ethnological collections are
the multi-formed woven bags, baskets, and household articles
which even the most primitive tribes turn out with great neatness
and accuracy. Although the art of intertwining, interlacing and
braiding plant fibres is known all over the world, its centres of
perfection are in Africa and the South Seas. The art appears
sporadically in the arctic regions,
where the lack of suitable materials
has led native manufacturing skill
into other channels.
Braiding and interlacing are two
STONE KNIFE FOR HUMAN Q{ ^ ^ handicrafts \ nown to
SACRIFICES
different stages of
Mexico development can be followed easily.
British Museum, London They lead from the simple joining
of palm leaves, bast strings, and
grass blades to the final development of the loom and the multi-
textured materials the loom produces. Although we speak of
basket * weaving/ this term must not be confused with the art of
the loom, which appears only in advanced cultures, while braiding
and interweaving are known everywhere.
The simple art of joining plant fibres into regular patterns to
produce the many containers, mats, sieves, and other gadgets
characteristic of basketry does not require the use of tools other
than an occasional awl or needle of wood or bone. About the
simplest method of making a fan, for instance, is the mere inter-
lacing of the pinnated parts of one single palm leaf, which makes
a pretty and sturdy article. It is used by many tribes of the Pacific
Islands and South America.
But by far the most important braided or interwoven objects are
the many and varied containers which primitive man uses to collect
and store his food and belongings. The very term * food gatherers*
implies that even the earliest tribes needed containers in which to
gather and to carry home whatever nature gave them. It is, there-
fore, not surprising that these peoples put great emphasis on light
weight, sturdiness, and efficient shape for their woven containers.
Australian baskets are either simply interlaced or show a quite
intricate application of the so-called spiral coil, developed from the
sling technique. Reed or grass forms the coil, round which the
INVENTION AND THE EARLY TRADES
bast fibres are wound, and the individual coils are then laced
together. Most bags are equipped with strings slung round the
EGYPTIANS HOLLOWING OUT
STONE VASES
Relief in Thebes, 650 B.C.
After Steindorff
MORU WOMAN
GRINDING DURRHA
After Bernatzik
shoulder to keep the hands free for the digging stick. Some tribes,
like the natives of Arnhemland, make twined baskets decorated with
FAN, WOVEN FROM
COCO LEAF
Santa Cruz Islands
Museum of Ethnology, Cologne
TWINED BASKET
Alligator river, Arnhem-
land, Australia
After F, D. McCarthy
interwoven * X-ray ' patterns in which human figures, lizards,
crocodiles, and goannas predominate.
The African Wambutti Pygmies have a practical method of
126 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
weaving a basket on the spot where they have killed and cut up a
piece of game. In order to carry it home conveniently they imme-
diately set to work to make a handsome basket, more than one yard
high, which is fashioned exactly after the pattern of their beehive
SAMPLE OF SPIRAL- SPIRAL-BRAIDING TECHNIQUE
COIL TECHNIQUE Tierra del Fuego
WITH AWL After G Montandon
After Schmidl
hut. When the basket has reached the desired dimensions they
pull the ' hut ' out of the soil, turn it over, fill it with the meat, and
carry it home.
The Yahgan of Tierra del Fuego know four different kinds of
BASKET FROM YORUBA YUKI BASKET
Africa California
Lindenmuseum t Stuttgart After A. L. Kroeber
basketry. Their different containers are known by the names of
the applied techniques.
Among the American Indians the art of basketry reached early
heights of perfection so much so that their woven objects often
replaced things which other peoples fashioned of wood or clay, like
plates, trays, bowls, cooking pots, and baby cradles. The California
Indians especially among whom basketry is " unquestionably the
most developed art " produce tools and containers of exquisite
INVENTION AND THE EARLY TRADES 127
shape, smoothness, and stability, most of them decorated with
geometrical ornaments achieved by the addition of multi-coloured
materials. While among these tribes the ancient coiling technique
is often entirely dispensed with, especially among the northernmost
ones and the Yurok and their neighbours, the most characteristic
examples of Maidu basketry remain coiled. The foundation of the
coils is always three-rod, with peeled willow or unpeeled redbud as
the chief materials. In the working process bone awls or sewing
splints are used to facilitate the anchoring of the work-fibre between
the coils.
The Maidu baskets are mostly two-coloured, brownish-red and
white, and measure up to the standards set by the other California
tribes, although they are not quite as perfect as the Porno and
Yakut containers. One of their most interesting objects the seed
beater, which is used in the processing of their wild harvests is
constructed of wicker. Tule mats, universal in California, are their
favourite pieces of ' furniture/ serving as " seats, bed, camp roofing
and doors."
The following variety of Yurok objects listed by Kroeber gives
at least an idea of the almost boundless use of basketry products
among these tribes : cooking baskets for acorn mush, high round
vessels used as general receptacles round the house, storage-baskets
of three feet or more in diameter, conical baskets for carrying loads,
patterned smaller baskets for gathering wild seeds, seed beaters of
coarse openwork, plates and trays of all sizes, decorated small
bowls, tobacco baskets often covered with deer-skin, hoppers for
the slabs on which acorns are pounded, dance baskets, women's
caps, baby carriers. This list is by no means complete and could
be supplemented by the countless basketry objects manufactured by
other tribes, especially the Porno, the Yuki, and the Lassik. Very
frequently used is the method of overlay twining. Over a founda-
tion of hazel shoots or conifer roots each weft strand is faced by a
coloured one, to produce designs.
Other American Indians, like the Apache, weave baskets of such
firmness and fineness that they are practically watertight. For
their manufacture, the Apache woman collects willow withes and
keeps them in a moist spot to preserve their flexibility. When used
they are split and scraped and woven into a circle, with stiff split
sticks for a bottom. To make the last openings disappear, the basket
is frequently interwoven with buck-skin strips. The resulting
vessel is a wide-mouthed storage-jug. The tus, or water-jug, gets an
additional inner and outer coating with warm pinon pitch. The
average size holds about five gallons of water.
128
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
Among the most important objects invented by the Indians of
South America is the so-called tipiti tube press, used for pressing
the juice out of the mandioca pulp. Intricately woven of diagonal
PATTERN FOR CROSS-WEAVING
Dutch East India
After Lamster
fibres, it contracts when pulled at both ends, thus extracting the
juice completely from the pulp. The Xingii river region is rich in
many other products of basketry, besides the tipiti. These pro-
BASKET-WEAVING TECHNIQUES
Dutch East India
After Lamster
ducts range from the large baskets of interwoven palm leaves to
tiny quivers for blowing darts, fire fans, covered boxes, and large-
burden baskets.
Other centres of basketry are in Indonesia and the Pacific Islands.
Many techniques are known in this region, from the ancient coiling
of liana and rotang fibres to woven sandals and fans and fine carrying
INVENTION AND THE EARLY TRADES 1 29
baskets. In the Santa Cruz Islands, the latter, for instance, are
overlaid with ornaments and tassel trimmings, and their appearance-
is indistinguishable from products of the loom, although they are
hand-plaited without any other technical aids than delicate fingers
and extreme dexterity. The * netting-without-a-knot ' technique
is used with equal skill for basketry and produces bags of great
strength and flexibility. Pacific cooks make use of hand- woven
tent-like structures which they drag over the open fire in the event
of a cloudburst. The braided mats of the South Seas are too well
known to be mentioned here at any length.
The basketware of Africa is world-famed and of such great
variety that many volumes have been filled with descriptions of
their shapes and ornamentations. From the huge fences of inter-
woven grass to the burden baskets of smooth liana braid ; from the
thousands of household containers, bowls, sieves, and trays of raffia
to the tiny square sun roof which protects the sleeping baby, human
craftsmanship and imagination have produced thousands of forms
so efficient and so beautiful that only a trip to a museum can provide
even an idea of their unsurpassable artistry. In the Cameroons and
elsewhere whole houses may be roofed with finely woven mats, and
entire village streets are screened off with sturdy woven walls.
Another use of the plant fibre is in the form of cords or twine,
binding materials which play a paramount role in many primitive
cultures. Snares and nets consist of strings ; wooden poles are
tied together to build a house. Whether the plant fibres are
obtained after complicated rotting processes or twined and twisted
together in their original state, they are among the most important
materials of most primitive cultures. The shark snares of the
Santa Cruz Islanders are strong enough to hold the huge prey.
A charming tale of the Pangwe explains the fact " that the animals
enable man to kill them " by their failure to destroy man's planta-
tions, which supply the fibres used in manufacturing fishing cords,
snares, and nets. The Tikar of the Cameroons cultivate a hemp
species that furnishes the thread for their sturdy tows and nets, and
their own cotton furnishes the raw material for the finely braided
bands on the aprons and baskets used by their women.
Even human hair may serve as a material for strings and braids.
The Australians manufacture hair bands of human and opossum
hair and braid belts and necklaces of the same material. No
Australian mother-in-law has the right to refuse to her daughter's
husband the privilege of claiming her * crowning glory ' when he
wishes to manufacture from it some strings or braids. The New
Caledonians decorate their chieftains' caps with long strands of
5
130 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
braided human hair, and the natives of Assam trim their spears with
similar cords. On the Melville Islands belts, bracelets, and head-
bands, often interwoven with feathers and plant fibres, are valued
pieces of * jewellery.' The native warriors hang balls of yellow
feathers on strings of human hair around their necks to bite into
during battle, like modern boxers who brace their teeth tightly on
mouthpieces during a fight.
Although all of this plaiting, braiding, interweaving, and basket-
work is characterized by the fact that the human hand alone does
the entire work, without any other help than an occasional awl,
other manufactured goods call for the use of additional tools like the
netting needle of wood or bone and a small board over which
meshes are slung. A large work frame is the technical stand-by of
many native braiders. The Naskapi, for instance, manufacture on
it their exquisite * rabbit-skin blankets ' from cords of moistened
fur coils, diametrically cut into strips. The blankets have the
appearance of a large fur robe of one piece, but in reality are nothing
but a network of interwoven single strips.
The fur blanket of the Maidu of California, for instance, is of
simpler workmanship than the type I observed in Labrador. The
Maidu knot their fur strips into one long strip which they " wind
back and forth between stakes to form a vertical plane of horizontal
warps. Into this the continuous double weft, two lines of the same
material, are twined alternately up and down and knitted to the
outermost warp on each turn." The Labrador Indians use the
much finer technique of crocheting with a wooden needle over a
frame. This produces a completely regular blanket, with tiny
invisible air holes between the coils of fur that give it great insulating
value. Other California tribes weave cord blankets with feathers
knotted into them.
Whoever sees the finished products of these techniques is im-
pressed with the regularity, smoothness, and neatness of its texture
which has all the fine qualities of delicate handiwork. However,
no regular weaving was possible without the existence of a thread
better perfected than the short, twisted coils or cords of old.
The desire to obtain a long, fine thread of equal thickness
required the invention of a new tool the spindle. The simple
stripping and cleaning of the fibres or, more technically, their
scutching, and their loosening and straightening out, or carding,
are known to many cultures. But regular spinning requires also,
in the words of Hooper, " the drawing of the carded filaments out
in an even rove and twisting them together into fine or coarse
continuous thread." The same author gives a good definition of
NEOLITHIC
WHORL
Found at
Knossos
PREHISTORIC
SPINNING
WHORL
Thessalian
Sesklo-Culture
After O. Menghin
INVENTION AND THE EARLY TRADES
the spindle when he says : " If a small stick, having a hook at one
end and a weight at the other, be suspended to the spinning thread,
the further even twisting of the yarn will become much easier,
because regulated by the continuous
revolution of the weighted stick or
spindle, as such an appliance is
called."
As soon as man began to settle
down the spindle appeared among
his most important tools, and we
can actually say that the invention
of agriculture and the appearance
of the spindle as a cultural element
are closely interrelated. The oldest
findings from the times of prehis-
toric man show that weaving equip-
ment existed in every household of
the earliest settled tribes. The clay
whorls found in the lowest layers of
the Anau culture at Merw in Trans-
caspia go back to about 3500 B.C. Similar specimens were dis-
covered in the ruins of Eridu (the Abu Sharein of to-day) and in
the so-called Sesklo culture of prehistoric Greece, as well as in
the remnants of the Cretan Neolithicum.
Especially numerous are the loom weights
and spindle whorls found in the homes of
the ancient European Lake Dwellers, where
even parts of looms, frames, and thread-
twisting machines have been preserved
through the millenniums, together with
fragments of mats and woven linen cloths.
The primitive spindles of our time are still
exactly like those earlier specimens which
were also used in the ancient high cultures
of Egypt, India, and Peru. No Peruvian
noblewoman left her home to go visiting
without a maid behind to carry a basket
containing her spindle and other gadgets necessary for needlework.
The facts show that the loom, which was developed from the
braiding techniques, is an invention of women. Men became
weavers only in the younger cultural stages, when trades and skills
began to be specialized. The form of the loom is derived from the
braiding frame with its simple series of parallel strings or warp,
SPINNING CHIMANE
INDIAN WOMAN
Bolivia
After Nordenskiold
132 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
through which the work thread or weft is alternately laced. The
natives of Melanesia and of tropical South America, also many
North American Indian tribes, braid head-bands, sashes, garters,
and belts on this type of simple frame. The lacing needle of bone
or wood is the forerunner of the weaver's shuttle and reed.
As to the forms of primitive looms, they are of such great variety
that their analysis would be a study in itself. The anthropologists
Chappie and Coon have divided them, according to their mechanical
principles, into three main groups : the one-bar loom, a % wooden
cross-bar suspended between two poles ; the two-bar loom, in
which the warp threads are stretched between two fixed bars,
mostly used in horizontal position, with needles operated by foot
treadles ; and, finally, the high-culture two-beam loom, which
introduces revolving cylinders and allows the manufacture of cloth
of unlimited length. The last adds so many improvements that it
can indeed be regarded as the model after which the modern
industrial loom has been fashioned.
These hand looms, then, are the machines used to weave the
delicately textured fabrics which so often are of better quality
and workmanship than the products of our own factories. The
unhurried manner of their manufacture, the inwoven patterns of
mysterious age and significance, and the mellow, subdued natural
colours produce effects of lasting quality and beauty.
Weaving looms are limited to certain relatively narrow regions of
the globe. The loom appears comparatively late in the array of
man's material possessions. It does not occur in the otherwise
highly developed Polynesian cultural circle. With the exception
of south-western United States where the Pueblo and Navaho are
famous for their multi-coloured woollen blankets and materials for
wearing apparel, the loom did not penetrate the North American
Indian cultures. It is also absent from South Africa, the steppes
of Asia, and from the arctic regions, where felt and animal skins
are substitutes for woven fabrics.
The logical development of the loom from the art of basketry is
indicated by the earliest materials used for threads. They are all
plant fibres : banana bast, nettles, hemp, and cotton in the hot
regions. Woollen cloth is of much later origin.
Among the best African weavers are the Tikar of the Cameroons,
whose cotton loin-cloths, dyed with redwood, are of striking appear-
ance. The large robes of the Hausa chieftains and others feature
colourfully striped ornaments ; and the cotton-padded * Phrygian '
caps of West Africa are examples of finest workmanship.
In addition to their delicately braided sleeping and ' money '
INVENTION AND THE EARLY TRADES 133
mats, the natives of Melanesia weave loin-cloths of banana fibres,
mostly decorated with fringes and with hemstitched borders of
exquisite symmetry.
The multi-textured materials woven on the looms of the ancient
high cultures are masterpieces of art and precision. The Peruvians
of pre-Columbian times, whose religious ritual required the offering
to their gods of woven masterpieces manufactured by the Sun
Virgins, produced pictorial pieces like tunics and shoulder-throws
whose patterns told whole stories or celebrated sacred figures like
the jaguar demon or the zigzag snake. Spear throwers and flying
birds decorate their ancient garments. Shirts, belts, and fringed
sashes found in their prehistoric graves show a perfection of weaving
which surpasses the much younger products of the great Parisian
Gobelin. The magnificence of the Egyptian fruits of the loom is
known from the findings in the Valley of the Kings ; the Chinese
gold damasks, the Persian velvets, the Coptic * Turkish towels/ all
made on hand looms, cannot be equalled by modern imitations.
In spite of the magic of modern textiles and recent triumphs
of the laboratory, one ancient fabric has remained the legendary
masterpiece of the ages. Lives have been risked, spent, and
sacrificed to obtain the secret of silk, so jealously guarded by its
Chinese inventors through millenniums. The princes of old and
the potentates of the Churches craved it for its regal splendour,
and even to-day the words * genuine silk ' overshadow by far the
chemical glamour of nylon and its derivatives. About 200 B.C. the
Koreans succeeded in discovering the details of silkworm raising,
and the knowledge of the technicalities behind the Divine Fabric
penetrated slowly to Japan and to Inner Asia, finally reaching Persia
and Tibet. It was not until the sixth century A.D. that Justinian
introduced it in Byzantium, and it was only after this that the Greeks
succeeded in adding the knowledge of ' silk raising ' to their arts.
No primitive tribe can claim the invention of silk or has been able
to manufacture it. The road of silk is the road of civilization.
While the art of weaving goes back to the ancient knowledge of
braiding and of basketry it is not the only skill developed from these
old techniques. A younger sister of the art of basketry, also
invented by women, is the manufacture of pots and vessels out of
clay ceramics. Although the materials of basketry and of pottery
are completely different, the manner of shaping containers from
both is kindred indeed.
One of the most ancient methods of making earthenware, the
fashioning of receptacles from clay coils, goes directly back to the
spiral-coil technique of basketry. This, however, does not imply
134 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
that the tribes familiar with the oldest braiding techniques are
necessarily also potters. Like the weaving loom, the art of pottery
does not appear in the material culture of man before the stage, of
agriculture has been reached. The roaming tribes of earlier com-
plexes had neither the time nor the opportunity to develop handi-
craft patience and working conditions of sufficient stability, nor
could they easily transport the fragile ware whose use is beneficial
only to permanent households.
As to the invention of pottery, the general assumption is that
it developed from the habit of plastering woven
containers with cement or clay to render them
waterproof, and that the usage of such vessels
on or near the fire suggested the idea of shaping
them from clay without further dependence
upon the original basket. This assumption
may be correct. We have no means of know-
ing to-day. But although this story of develop-
ment may hold true as far as sun-dried clay
CRUDE EARTHEN- containers are concerned, it is more than doubt-
WARE CUP ful whether baked earthenware can be regarded
Found in a Mound a s of similar origin. A scientist of the distinction
near Lodi, Calif, of Nordenskiold calls the idea * preposterous.'
After Nordenskiold He believes that such accidentally baked pieces
of plastered basketry would by no means turn
into baked earthenware, but rather into ' a rubble of burnt clay/
and suggests that a knowledge of the washing and the preparation
of the clay and the shaping of initial tiny bowls must have pre-
ceded the * building-up methods ' applied in the manufacture
of larger vessels. This example of divided scientific opinion on
the origins of pottery serves perhaps best as an illustration of the
challenging nature of such problems.
Ceramic-making tribes have different methods of processing clay,
according to the consistency and composition of the soil they have
at their disposal. The clay is cleaned and dried. Dirt particles
are removed by sifting. If the clay is too ' fat/ it is mixed with
binding materials like sand, grit, ashes, or even tiny particles of
wood or grass. In South America the application of sponge
spicules in the clay was an independent Indian invention. If the
* dough ' has gained a smooth mouldable consistency it is ready for
the working process.
The shaping of containers in the different regions of the world
follows five principal methods four of them primitive, one
characteristic of the high cultures exclusively.
INVENTION AND THE EARLY TRADES 135
The simplest and crudest way is to take a lump of clay and
gradually press down its central part, which raises the outer sides.
In this rough shape the outer sides are beaten with a piece of wood
while a stone is held against the inner part to counteract the pressure
of the beating. The Papua of New Guinea, who also have other
methods, make most of their pottery in this manner.
The spiral-coil technique uses one long coil of clay which is
built up from the bottom in circular fashion until the desired height
has been attained. The inner and outer sides of the pot or bowl
are then smoothed out with the aid of a stone or a piece of wood.
SPIRAL-COIL POTTERY COIL POTTERY
South-east Coast of New Baila, North Rhodesia
Guinea
After Hurley
Very similar is the method of building up a container from a
series of rings. Each ring is larger than the one previously used,
with the smallest forming the bottom and the largest the upper rim.
As in the coiling technique, the contours of the rings are then
smoothed together.
The fourth method requires the initial shaping of a round clay
bottom, to which a number of side flaps are attached. These are
built up and worked into each other by a slow turning of the vessel.
The fifth method, which alone is the exclusive invention of the
high cultures, makes use of a mechanical device, the potter's wheel,
whose invention, as the invention of all wheels, was revolutionary
in so far as its mechanical principle has no equivalent in nature.
To think it out was a triumph of human imagination independent
of the imitation of phenomena observed in nature. The revolving
potter's wheel was known in Egypt before the beginning of the
third pre-Christian millennium ; the craftsmen of Crete used it
136 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
during the oldest stages of the Bronze period, and it was known in
many parts of India. Its first European appearance was about
500 B.C. in France and southern Germany. It was unknown on
the entire American continent.
Primitive earthenware is baked in an open fire, and many vessels
and containers are beautified with engraved or painted ornaments.
The knowledge of the glazing process is reserved to the high
cultures.
The natives of West Africa have an interesting method of en-
graving patterns into the smooth clay of a vessel. A wooden stick
is carved in very sharply contoured patterns and rolled round the
container in such a way that the ornaments are pressed into its
surface in a regular and symmetrical fashion. More complicated
patterns can be obtained by a crosswise application of the wooden
stencil. In the Cameroons the pots decorated in this manner are
dried for a few hours and then burnt during the night. The
result is earthenware of great sturdiness and attractiveness.
The West African vessels vary in size from small bowls to round
cooking pots of great dimensions.
Among the North American Indians only a few tribes like the
Pueblo and the Hopi are expert potters. But their great art has
declined during the last several centuries. The spiral-coil pots of
the cliff dwellers featured striking black ornaments, and the multi-
coloured earthenware of the abandoned Hopi cities were master-
pieces. To the California tribes the art of pottery is almost a
forgotten skill ; modern Indians must consult their grandparents
to learn how the vessels which are still in use were originally
created.
The South American Indians are the inventors of pots with
hollow rims. In stoneless regions they had an ingenious method
of replacing the stones originally used for stone cooking (by heating
a stone in the fire and putting it into the food-filled container) by
clay balls. These Indians also fashion clay pipes of peculiar shapes.
A study of the earthenware pipes of man would lead one all over
the globe, from the jungle to the parlours of old Holland.
The ancient high cultures, especially of Persia, India, Egypt,
Mexico, and Peru, have contributed the most perfected examples of
ceramics. Magnificent water-jugs, often in the shape of human
heads or figures and comparable to the English Toby jugs, have
been found, especially in the graves of Peru. The museums of the
world are filled with countless examples of earliest ceramic art.
In the science of prehistory the manifold shapes of ancient
pottery have even served to name cultural periods according to the
INVENTION AND THE EARLY TRADES
137
forms and ornamentations of the earthenware manufactured by the
artisans of the particular times.
While the Stone Age craftsmen of the Palaeolithicurn -hunters
and food gatherers could not advance to the art of pottery, the
Neolithicum, the age of the earliest agriculturists,
abounded with ceramic products of exquisite
shapes and decorations, and its three principal
periods obtained their names from their pottery.
We speak of the Neolithic periods of ' corded
ceramics ' (Schnurkeramik) ; of * bell - shaped
cups ' or ' zonical cups ' (Glockenbecher, Zonen-
becher, vase a campana) ; and of ' band ceramics '
(BandkeramiK). Remnants of these have been
found in northern and central Europe, on the
Iberian Peninsula, in Italy, France, Great Britain,
and the ancient Danubian cultural centres.
But the modelling of clay, even in the earliest WATER-JUG
times, did not serve only practical purposes. Clay
The shaping of human figures from moulded Peru
clay, whether for the sake of magic or mere Museum of
aesthetic joy, was practised by primitive man in Ethnology, Cologne
central Europe as early as during the Aurignacian,
and animal idols and statuettes, especially of women, abounded in
the Neolithic Age as a parallel feature to the beautifully ornamented
vases, spinning whorls, clay stencils, and the like.
In the ancient Egyptian tombs multitudes of clay figures and clay
PRINCIPAL GROUPS OF NEOLITHIC CERAMICS
* Corded ' Ceramics
* Zonical' Cups
After Ddchelette
'Band' Ceramics
tools and gadgets have been found. These were meant to serve
the departed in the other world. Hundreds of them are among
the treasures of the British Museum from the tiny plates of clay
filled with symbolic fruits and vegetables to the multitude of
symbolic figures and amulets.
The climax of ceramic art was reached with the invention of
porcelain, another gift of high culture which China has added to
c*
138 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
the material possessions of man. Its first appearance can be dated
back to about A.D. 700. Porcelain originated from the desire to
create a substitute for the precious nephrite plates and dishes of the
oldest times, which the earliest specimens of Chinese porcelain
imitate as closely as possible in shape and colour. Hence the
oldest chinaware is not white, but green, grey, or bluish, in the
shades of the cherished and valuable stone. The desire for thin-
ness and fragility was developed much later, when the porcelain
was no longer regarded as an imitation of the nephrite but became
cherished on its own merits as a material capable of producing shapes
of utmost delicacy and fineness.
Even to-day the Chinese porcelains manufactured especially in
the ateliers of Chingtehchen (Kiangsi Province) are about the most
valued in the world. At all times porcelain has graced the tables
of the mighty. It was one of the first concerns of the Japanese
invaders of the Second World War to carry off as many of the
treasured Chingtehchen pieces as possible. When victory finally
came the Chinese government commemorated the event by ordering
a special series of bowls and vases from the artisans of Chingtehchen,
as a national gesture to mark the resurrection of the glory of China.
But the raw materials of the mineral and the plant worlds have
not alone been utilized by man to fashion things he needed or wanted.
The animal world has its equal share in primitive industry. Besides
the horns and bones which were shaped into tools, the skins of
hunted animals have provided very important additions to the
material possessions of humanity. We saw that among the oldest
tools uncovered in the prehistoric findings were fur scrapers,
skinning implements, and the like. It is certain that the ability to
skin animals is among man's earliest skills.
Although the knowledge of skin tanning, dressing, and currying
is by no means known to the most primitive tribes, the Australians
sew animal skins together with kangaroo sinews to fashion them
into garments where the climate is rough. The South African
natives wear crude versions of fur coats, and the indispensable
stand-bys of the Fuegians are their wraps of guanaco fur and their
large sleeping blankets of the same material. The entire African
East Coast, from the southern tip of the continent up to the
equatorial forests, uses animal skins for various purposes ; and
certain regions of the Sudan can be regarded as regular ' leather
provinces/
While animal skins are utilized on all continents, the treatment of
the raw hide to turn it into leather of greater or lesser smoothness
and pliability varies considerably. In this field the herdsmen are
INVENTION AND THE EARLY TRADES 139
the best artisans, but the arctic and subarctic hunters and the
tribes of Inner Asia also know how to get the best use of their
animal skins. For simple water containers, tent covers, carrying
bags, etc., they merely scrape off the meat and sinews from the
flesh side of the pelt, but whenever smooth leather is needed for
the manufacture of garments, moccasins, caps, and the like, the
hair must be removed. The cleaning is done with fleshers of stone,
bone, slate, or shells, often with the help of a scraping beam, where-
upon the removal of the hair can begin. Although some tribes
simply pull out the furry parts, others soak pelts in water to detach
the fur.
Among the various methods of removing hair is that of burying
the skins in the ground, often with the addition of ashes or leaves,
as in Africa, or of soaking them in a yucca concoction, as in Cali-
fornia. Soaking in urine is an arctic method which also was known
to the ancient .Greeks and Romans. After any of these treatments
it is easy to pull out the loosened hair either by hand or by rubbing
the skins over a tight rope, as is done in many places in Africa.
The Naskapi lace skins into a vertical frame and work on them with
the thigh-bone of a bear or a beaver tooth.
Although the art of currying animal skins with salt, alum, and
other minerals is a high-culture invention, the primitive manu-
facturers of leather know many methods of making it pliable and
smooth. Fish oil, moss, and animal brains or livers are worked
into the skins, followed by rolling, pounding, wringing, and other
manipulations. The old explorer Mason is only too accurate :
" Human muscle is the chief ingredient in aboriginal tanning."
Primitive methods of dyeing prepared skins are very numerous.
The caribou skins which the Montagnais-Naskapi use for their
moccasins have, after processing, a snowy-white appearance and are
exceedingly smooth and flexible. To make them more practical for
wearing, these soft skins are dyed to a mellow brown over pails
filled with smouldering wood particles. The leggings and moc-
casins of the Blackfoot Indians were smoked similarly over oak rind,
which caused their black colouring and gave the wearers their
name. A leather-dyeing method of the Eskimos is to ' chew ' the
juice of the purple snail into the prepared skins, which produces a
beautiful red colour. The bark of the white maple mixed with
yellow ochre makes the blue dye of the Omaha ; cactus juices were
used by the leather dyers of the prairies, and the deep-red colour
of the African Hausa and Mandingo is obtained by treatments with
the bark of the mangrove-tree.
While these practices aim at the utilization of cleaned animal
140 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
skins, another important industry concerns itself with the hair
removed from pelts exclusively. This is the art of felting. It is
most important to the peoples of Central Asia and to the tribes of
the Sudan. In Tibet it has reached especially high perfection.
The pelts used are the skins of the yak, whose leather, always
uncured, provides the material for boots, saddles, and harnesses.
For felt-making the yaks are shorn. Since animal hairs have tiny
hooks they have a tendency to stick together when properly treated.
The carded fibres are spread out, moistened, and compressed, and
joined so firmly that a fabric-like material, sturdy and waterproof,
results. The finest felts of Tibet are as thin as veils. If thicker
felt is desired for coverings of the winter tents or for saddle paddings,
boot linings, flooring, and other equipment, additional layers are
pressed and rolled upon the previous ones.
It is interesting to note that most wool-producing peoples do not
spin the fibre into cloth and that the manufacture of felt is older
than the weaving of animal hairs into fabrics.
Plants, minerals, animals contributed to man's early industries ;
but his skill enabled him to penetrate into the surface of the earth
to discover copper and iron ores ; to learn the secret of the gold-
bearing rivers ; to melt different metals for producing alloys ; to
erect furnaces in the wilderness. The capacity for making metal
tools brought a fundamental change to the trades inherited from
earlier ages. New possibilities of construction and of conquest arose.
New independence, new inventions, new industries, strengthened
the power of man.
The Iron Age, of which our present age of steel is merely a late
phase, began in Europe three thousand years ago, when the know-
ledge of iron manufacture penetrated the Mediterranean regions.
In China, however, the metal was already mentioned in the records
of the administration of the Emperor Yao during the year 2357 B.C.
In Egypt it was known in 2800 B.C., although there it ranked as a
curiosity until 1600 B.C.
Despite this respectable age, the discovery of iron is the youngest
branch of metallurgy. It was preceded by the Bronze Age, which
developed from the knowledge of copper manufacture.
When we think of the ancient metals our imagination likes to
dwell on the treasures of silver and of gold that came from Egypt
and Ur, Bolivia and Colombia ; the legendary riches of vanished
kings and empires which have been brought to light in the Valley
of the Kings at Thebes, in Persia, in Greece, and in Mexico.
Although the ancient high cultures abounded in manifestations of
INVENTION AND THE EARLY TRADES
141
GOLD SMELTER
Ancient Egypt
After Rosellini
wealth and luxuriant art unknown in our time, their golden cans
and vases, necklaces, nose and ear ornaments, idols and luxuries,
were not an expression of a very high
living standard for all, but rather of the
privilege of the very few, whose riches
were created amidst the frightful poverty
of the many. We can be sure that the
goldsmiths of the Chibchas who shaped
silver and gold vessels for household use
and who soldered gold wire on the golden
masks and ornaments were as poor as
the slaves who mined gold for the
Egyptians. All the artistic treasures of
the ancient empires could not have been created, however, if
the right tools had not existed.
Copper and bronze were the oldest
metals shaped into tools. They go back
to the end of the Neolithicum and mark
the beginnings of the Bronze Age, when
the art of mixing copper with tin into a
new alloy bronze was invented. This
technique was known in Crete as early as
during the end of the fourth pre-Christian
millennium, but it was spread over so
many other regions of the globe that
the location of its first appearance cannot
be determined to-day.
Five thousand furnaces stood on the
plateaux around Potosi in the bronze-
manufacturing regions of ancient Bolivia.
And in China the bronzes of the Shang
Dynasty (1766-1122 B.C.) followed in
their execution the firmly established
rules of artistic tradition. After millen-
niums of burial in the tombs of China,
these bronzes have assumed the classic
patinas of " pure blue as the plumage
of the kingfisher " or " pure green as
the rind of a melon/' which only very
genuine and very pure bronzes show when continuously exposed
to water or to air.
When we think of primitive metallurgy, however, we look
in the direction of Africa, because it was from there that astounding
WINGED IBEX
Handle of a Silver Vase :
fourth century B.C.
Louvre, Paris
142 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
evidences of perfected metalwork have come since the discovery
of the Dark Continent. When to-day we find bracelets, tools,
and ornaments cast in bronze by the tribesmen of Adamaua,
Nigeria, and Togo this is merely a last reflection of the glamorous
African period of the so-called cire perdue process, which reached
its climax in the bronze-relief plates and the magnificent human
IRON FURNACE
Tanganyika, East Africa
After Schmidt-Koppers
and animal statues adorning the palace of Benin. Judging from
the appearance of the costumes of Europeans often depicted in
these works of art, this industry of West Africa was at its height
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The technique of the cire perdue begins with the shaping of
a wax model of the figure to be cast (shaped around a clay kernel
for larger objects), which is then coated with a layer of brick meal
or sulphate of lime. When this has been dried air holes and cast
openings are drilled. The mould is then exposed to the fire which
melts the wax. It can now be filled with the liquid metal. The
resulting statue or relief is completely free of any casting marks and
can be completed with the help of files, hammers, and puncheons.
INVENTION AND THE EARLY TRADES
The Benin pieces all show delicately engraved backgrounds with
floral and geometrical ornaments which might have aroused the
envy of Benvenuto Cellini, that great Renaissance master of the
cera perduta technique.
The most exciting story of African metallurgy, however, is
the saga of iron. . Although not all African tribes know the art
of iron smelting (the Bushmen and most Pygmies do not), it
was most probably known to the Negroes before the whites knew
of it. It can rightfully be called a thoroughly African achievement.
Noted scientists like Luschan have firmly established the fact of
AFRICAN KNIVES
Chieftain's
Knife
Karissme
Striking
Knife
Bayansi
Striking
Knife
Ubangi
Throwing
Knife
Congo
Basin
Hewing
Knife
South
Cameroons
Lindenmuseum, Stuttgart (after K. Weule)
its African origin, although others claim its migration from South
Asia or Asia Minor. Be that as it may, Africa is really the classic
land of native iron technique. Its towering furnaces were built
by the natives long before history was recorded. But the smelting
furnace is not an inevitable necessity in primitive iron manufacture.
Some tribes still melt iron in the ancient hearth pit, which resembles
the ancient earth oven in which smouldering stones cooked the
earliest meals. The sight of these white-hot stones in the fire may
be responsible for the discovery of the technique of iron melting.
The ability to work off the ore presupposes the existence of
simple smelting gear, especially of the bellows, whose oldest
forerunners are the fan and the blowpipe. From the latter the
two fundamental forms of primitive bellows have developed :
the bag bellows of animal skin with a wood-framed opening,
and the pump or piston bellows consisting of a box or pipe from
which a piston pumps air into the hearth pit or furnace. The
pointed European hand bellows is a combination of both.
144 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
The equipment of the primitive blacksmith is of utter sim-
plicity. Pieces of metal or of stone serve as" hammer and anvil ;
two wooden sticks or an iron pincer are his tongs. The number
of his products varies from the tools of agriculture, of industry,
and of war, to gigantic pieces of ' jewellery ' like iron cuffs of arm
length, iron collars, iron beads, and the multi-shaped hewing
knives for jungle clearing, the ' money ' in the shape of spear-
heads, and the countless articles facilitating hunt and home life.
Iron chains are especially well made in East Africa, and even
twentieth-century technique could add nothing in principle to
the African art of wire drawing. The smelting furnaces of Gurma,
Togo, and Yoruba extend to fifteen feet and higher. The Fulbe
and Mandingo artisans belong to the best native blacksmiths.
Among the western Bantu iron is mined in adits longer than a
mile. The Dark Continent is indeed the continent of iron !
The social position of the blacksmith is one of the most interesting
facets of this great industry. While he enjoys a highly privileged
position, especially in the western Sudan, where he is a priestlike
protege of kings and chieftains, his position throughout the entire
north of Africa is that of a feared and disdained pariah. Stuhlmann
explains this attitude from the fact that the later-arriving light-
skinned Hamitic and other tribes, who found the Negroes in the
possession of a secret they had not known, developed feelings of
suspicion and jealousy against them.
In other parts of the world, like Tibet, blacksmiths are regarded
as members of the lowest caste. Here, the reasons are religious.
The slaughterers of the * holy ' Buddhist cattle and the men who
forge the knives to dissect them are lowly creatures who can never
rise to lamadom. This does not mean that the faithful would not
participate in the forbidden eating of meat. A shrewd way out
has been found in the holy city of Lhasa. There a lama reads a
religious mass over any ox to be killed, thereby safeguarding the
animal's reincarnation and the protection of the smith who furnished
the knife from mishaps in the hereafter. Among another Asiatic
people, the Buryats, the blacksmiths are the cream of society,
freed of paying taxes and regarded as related to the gods. The
Mongol darxat are smiths with the rank of knights.
The importance of iron is expressed in many Biblical references,
like the one in i Samuel xiii, 19, 20 :
Now there was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel :
for the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords or spears :
But all the Israelites went down to the Philistines, to sharpen every
man his share, and his coulter, and his axe, and his mattock.
INVENTION AND THE EARLY TRADES
Even then, the possession of iron decided battles and made
world history, as we learn from Judges i, 19, and iv, 3 :
And the Lord was with Judah ; and he drave out the inhabitants
of the mountain ; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the
valley, because they had chariots of iron.
And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord : for he had nine
hundred chariots of iron ; and twenty years he mightily oppressed
the children of Israel.
The importance of metal tools in the ancient high cultures
was tremendous, as was noted by
Flinders Petrie. " Thousands of EARLY EGYPTIAN TOOLS
writers/' he said, " have described
the sculptures of the Parthenon, not
one has described the means used
in performing that work." In his
interesting study of old-world metal
tools he shows that " the forms of
the chisel were perfected 2500 years
ago/' and that " saws and crown-
drills with fixed teeth of corundum
or gem stones for cutting quartz
rocks were used in Egypt 6000 years
ago." In fact, many ancient tools
have not only remained unsurpassed
by modern man, but the original Bronze
good design has in some cases actu- Chisels
ally deteriorated or been forgotten
during the ages. This holds true
especially of the Egyptian detachable shears and an Egyptian
sickle of extremely efficient shape.
As to the invention of the manufacture of metals outside Africa,
Asia, and Europe, iron was not known to the aborigines of other
continents. The only Indian tribe which learned to smelt iron
ore, the Campas of Peru, adopted their technique from the whites.
The entire Pacific area did not know the use of metals. The North
American Indians of pre-Columbian times manufactured tools
from copper found in their regions, just like their northern neigh-
bours, the " Yellow-knife " Eskimos. However, these tools were
hammered into shape, since the natives had no knowledge of the
smelting process. For South America, Nordenskiold claims an
independent invention of bronze.
In Africa the process of melting iron is often the centre of a
regular religious ritual. The Ganguelas of Angola who dig the
Square
Socket
After Petrie
' Roman '
Shears
146 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
hearth pit must remain without food or any sexual intercourse for a
long time. Sacred roots are thrown into the pit, and are then moist-
ened with the blood of a sacrificed chicken to the words : " We kill
you not for the sake of your meat, but that the iron may come."
The Pangwe do not begin the good work without the preparation
of expensive * holy medicines.' The ability to melt iron has to be
paid for with five sheep, five chickens, and five pieces of brass
wire, cashed in by the medicine man, whose presence is obligatory
during the smelting. The magic ingredients a bunch of leaves,
c sacred ' bark, poison, and some brain substance of an ancestor
(" to watch the smelting process ") are enclosed in a small pot
and put into the pit, which is then filled with charcoal and the ore
and covered with a top layer of more coal. When a burning piece
of coal has been introduced into the pit the servants of the bellows
begin their work, accompanied by the sound of the medicine man's
iron bell and his songs, cries, dances, and wild notes blown on an
antelope horn.
Among the Asiatic Buryats a man may become a smith only
if he has other smiths among his ancestors. No ordinary tribes-
man can enter the sacred profession. On the other hand, the
qualified man who refuses to accept the great distinction of
becoming a blacksmith will die. An old myth of the Buryats tells
of the unhappy times when men lived miserably without the
knowledge of iron. One blessed day, however, the good ghosts,
or tengri, decided to send the god Boshintoj and his nine sons
down to earth to teach mortals the sacred trade. Boshintoj soon
returned to the skies. But his sons married the daughters of men,
and their first pupils were the ancestors of all smiths to come. All
of the nine have individual names and are the patron saints of the
tools of the smithy. In their honour the shaman sings, as Sand-
shejev reports, a holy litany in a ceremony built round their worship :
You nine white smiths of Boshintoj !
You, who own the flying spark,
The noisy, sounding tools,
The firm anvil of steel,
The squeaking file
You descended to the lower world,
A silver-mould on your chests,
Tongs in your left hand !
Mighty is the magic of the smithy,
Magnificent the marvels
Of your mighty bellows
Ah, you nine white smiths of Boshintoj,
On your nine white horses,
Mighty is the spark of your flame 1
INVENTION AND THE EARLY TRADES 147
And so on, until " the divine spirits of the forge have been
appeased."
Mighty is the power of iron but mightier still is the imagination
of man.
When we consider the primitive crafts as a whole we find in the
earliest beginnings a logically and cleverly executed division of
labour between the sexes. Among the Pygmies and the Bushmen
of Africa, the Australians and the Fuegians, the woman is considered
and treated as the mistress of the household, while the man is the
expert on hunting tools and all activities related to the hunt,
including, for instance, the Pygmy manufacture of arrow poison.
The Vedda wife of Ceylon digs the yams and prepares the food,
while her husband brings home animals of prey.
An interesting survey of the tasks of the two sexes of the
Andamanese has been furnished by Mann, who mentions among
the daily duties of the husband the following activities : hunting,
fishing, the catching of turtles, the gathering of wild honey, the
building of the canoe and of the solidly constructed huts, the
manufacture of bows, arrows, and most household implements.
The women of the same tribe are responsible for the household,
care of babies, obtaining vegetal foods, cooking, providing water,
care of the fire, building light huts, and the manufacture of the
simpler household containers and the * jewellery.' Furthermore,
it is the women's task to shave the rest of the family and decorate
their skins with scars and tattoos.
While in the earliest cultures everybody manufactured for
himself whatever he or his family needed, the development of
specified trades does not occur until the agricultural stage has
been reached, when it is not uncommon for the man to assume
what had been feminine tasks previously. In the East Mbamland
of the Cameroons, the women of the tribe are potters while the
men take care of braiding and fibrework. In contrast to this,
the men of Togo are the ones who shape the earthenware vessels
of the household. On Santa Cruz Island the women are almost
exclusively responsible for the care of the fields, cooking, and fishing
with nets. The men dedicate themselves to the manufacture of
most material possessions with the exception of bark-cloth making,
which is women's work. The braiding of the all-important mats
and the manufacture of tools and weapons are done by the men,
who often do their work collectively in a club-house. In Melanesia
the women are exclusively responsible for the manufacture of
ceramic products.
How manifold was the technical education of, for instance,
148 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
a Maori boy in all male trades has been recorded by Best. The
training of such a young man ready to start out in life began with
the manufacture of greenstone and bone tools, of spears and
spades, and later he was taught the making of the scuffle hoe
and the smaller tools necessary for the care of the taro crops.
His advanced courses taught him the construction of " houses,
huts, cooking sheds, store-houses, also elevated platforms or
stages on which certain food-supplies and other things were
stored/' He learned the construction of windbreaks, shelter huts,
and hamlets, " the art of dressing timber with stone adzes of two
kinds and the use of the wooden beetle and wedges in splitting
timber as material for dwelling-houses, store-houses, defensive
stockades. The use of stone chisels and drills was also taught,
also the art of wood-carving and of painting designs." " Yet
another course of instruction/' Best says, " was that connected
with the making of canoes and their numerous appurtenances,
and likewise the manufacture of fish-hooks/'
Often the restriction of different skills to one or the other sex
leads to such specialization that a lack of versatility is the result.
This is especially true of Africa. Individual craftsmen began
to make one article exclusively, and all who wanted it had to trade
with them. Tessmann reports from the Pangwe that among
them a man manufactures, for instance, spoons, and refuses to
carve ladles ; that a stool-maker makes only stools ; a crossbow-
maker makes only crossbows ; a man's carrying bag is obtainable
only from the manufacturer of men's carrying bags, and so forth.
This often makes it necessary for the tribesmen to undertake
long trips to procure a simple gadget like a baby-carrier, consisting
of two leather strips, which anybody can make, but which only one
man is entitled to manufacture.
The growing tendency towards specialization, then, led finally
to the formation of regular professional groups and castes in
the high cultures. The strongest manifestation of this was the
guilds of the European Middle Ages. Our machine age has
gone further. On to-day's assembly lines in the great factories
we find men who make one screw, one bolt one part exclusively
as long as they live. This may serve the efficiency of large-scale
mass manufacture, but whether it is an effective means of developing
the powers of initiative in a man is another question.
In primitive cultures, as well as in our own, over-emphasized
specialization most certainly causes a deterioration of individual
skill. Among the primitives it can lead to complete abandonment
of a knowledge once possessed. This is especially true under
INVENTION AND THE EARLY TRADES 149
the influence of the white man's importations. It is one of the
reasons why the word * progress ' should be used only with
greatest reservation, because for what we learn in the technical
world we sacrifice an older skill which may not be inferior as far
as dexterity and initiative are concerned.
A Labrador Indian whose steel traps had been stolen managed
to save his very life by remembering how his grandfather built
the ancient wooden traps. All over the world we can observe
the dying of old artisanship and true handicraft. Cheap ironware
replaces the beautiful stone knives ; glass beads supplant ivory and
tortoise-shell ; bright aniline paints kill the knowledge of the
blending of the soft mineral and plant colours. In India the famed
lac dyes, once a source of employment for thousands, vanish under
imports ; the arts of leatherwork and tanning are rapidly being
forgotten. The products of the Lancashire mechanical looms
replace the output of the native cotton mills of Bengal.
In our metropolitan centres of progress we often have trouble
in finding a watchmaker skilled enough to repair a timepiece with
the care and efficiency such precision work requires. Our great
respect for antique furniture comes in part from our knowledge
that modern manufacturing methods provide for neither the time
nor the skill to produce objects of lasting value. Even the native
implements frequently offered to our museums show a marked
decline of quality. It is one of the criteria of a good curator to
distinguish between the careful products of traditional workmanship
and the export ware which reaches us only too often from the
* primitive ' corners of the globe. Our artisans have realized the
danger, and the civilized efforts to save the skills of, for instance,
the Navaho Indians and of the sculptors of West Africa have led
to the establishment of schools for the preservation of native
handicraft.
The most modern twentieth-century prophets of applied art
try to awaken a new appreciation of hand-made things and to
achieve qualities comparable with those of the first primitive
manufacturers to whom * the best for all ' was no problem.
CHAPTER SIX
Having a Good Time
WHEN WE SET out to enjoy ourselves we have to go through
considerable preparation for our pleasure, like buying tickets,
dressing, arriving on time, or preparing our homes for the reception
of guests. Whether we know it or not, all these preliminaries
BEER-BREWING WOMEN
Belgian Congo
By courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History, New York
take some of the impetus out of our joy. Furthermore, the
* relaxations ' of civilized man are often of a strenuous nature.
Primitive man is much luckier in this respect. He need make
no effort to prepare for a good time. His gay nature, unshackled
by conventions and frustrations, keeps him at a mental level of
comparatively permanent happiness. Not that he lives in a
paradise ; his hardships are plenty. But he is so perfectly ad-
justed to his narrow and perilous world that he takes even un-
150
HAVING A GOOD TIME 151
avoidable disappointments in a calm, philosophical spirit. When
times are tough the savage cheerfully hopes for a better turn of
events. He practically always has a good time, because the notion
of time is not a factor in his scheme of things. He is never * late.'
In the oldest cultures tobacco and alcoholic beverages are
unknown. No artificial stimulants are needed to make a gathering
festive. Most celebrations are casual. Official feasts on fixed
dates are features of the more advanced of the high cultures.
When times are good in primitive tribal life they are enjoyed
as they come. No egotistical attitude limits the circle of the
celebrants to a chosen crowd. Whether it is the neighbourly chat
in hut or community house or the great inter-tribal visits of the
harvesters, everybody who can possibly be accommodated is
welcome to share whatever there is to share.
The good times of the wilderness naturally depend to a large
extent on the availability of food. Nowhere does hunger inspire
hospitality. But when plenty of game has been brought in, when
the fruits especially the perishable ones are ripe, when a whale
has been harpooned, the blessings of abundance are enjoyed by
every one who cares to take part.
The menu of the primitive kitchen is by no means monotonous,
although the climatic conditions make for natural limitations.
In Tierra del Fuego, for instance, where the cold, moist forests
are * dead ' and covered most of the year with a * shroud of snow/
the reefs of the shore abound with edible sea-fowl like wild geese,
penguins, cormorants, and gulls. Mammals like seals, sea-lions, and
whales come in from the sea. Shells and snails, clams, crayfish,
and sea-urchins provide variety. The prize roast is the guanaco
of the plains. All meat is roasted or cooked in the hot ashes or
in the open fire. The cold, humid climate produces few vegetal
foods except barberries, but these people keep healthy with their
saltless diet and with no beverage other than clear water. To
the vitamin addict the word of a Naskapi Indian of the subarctic
regions of Canada may provide food for contemplation : " The
bear eats the berries, and we eat the bear so why bother with
vegetables ? "
For the nomad hunters of the eastern Bolivian forests, like
the Siriones, nature provides a much wider choice. A variety
of palm-trees furnishes delicious fruits which are often roasted
in the fire ; and tapirs, alligators, wild boars, turtles, squirrels,
armadillos, snakes, insects, and even worms are cooked in the
hot ashes.
It is interesting indeed to note the culinary possibilities even
152 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
of rough regions like south-eastern Alaska, where natives treat
each other to * ice cream ' of pounded fish roe or, on the sweet
side, to frozen soapberry mush. The Alaskan Indians, who
never used salt before the arrival of the white man, have vegetables
like wild celery, wild sorrel, and the delicious inner white bark
of young spruce-trees, supplemented by currants, cranberries,
salmonberries, strawberries, huckleberries, and other berries.
Besides sea food and fowl, they enjoy the meat of the seal,
the deer, and the bear, and other wild game. But the five species
of salmon that abound in their region are perhaps their most
important food. Salmon is eaten fresh or air- and fire-dried,
and the heads of salmon and halibut, buried in the ground and
eaten after some days, in putrefied condition, are a treat fit for
an honoured guest. The method of wind-drying meat and fish is
an established Eskimo custom, while smoke-drying, which pro-
duces a much tastier staple food, is the typical meat-preserving
method of the Indians of Labrador. The Eskimo habit of storing
fish in caches and eating them raw, tainted, and frozen, is respon-
sible for their name * raw-eaters/ as the neighbouring Indians
call them.
To the harvesting peoples the plants on which they depend
during the major part of the year are not only the sources of food
supply, but also the means of their hospitality. In Australia
whole tribes are invited to share the feasts held during the lily-root,
bunya-bunya, and nardoo seasons, and dances and shows are
enjoyed with the assurance that everybody can eat to his heart's
desire.
In America the Kamia exchange their wild acorns for the
cultivated water-melons of their Diegueno neighbours. The nut-
ting parties of the pinon-collecting Apaches are social events,
paralleled by the season when the mescal tubers are gathered.
The gathering groups camp in the hills to exchange stories, songs,
and gossip, and to enjoy one another's company without having
to worry about empty stomachs.
Although delicious trout fill the streams of the Apache region,
they are never eaten, because an old legend maintains that once
people became very sick after a trout meal. Their skin was
" spotted just like the fish in the river " and they died shortly
afterward. " From that day to this," says Reagan, " no Apache
has eaten fish." The medicine men do their best to keep them
aware of the ' danger/
The fish and the acorns of the Porno are all of ' mythical ' origin.
The knowledge of acorns came to the Indians during one of the
HAVING A GOOD TIME 153
five creations of the world (which was destroyed four times by the
powers of nature). During the third period Marumda, a super-
natural being posing as an old man, taught them to pick acorns.
" These you will gather, and with them you will make mush ! "
He taught the women how to dry, grind, and soak the acorns to
make them sweet and how to work the dry and pounded flour into
food. Typically enough, the hospitable Porno women called the
old man to their hut for the firs*t acorn meal ; but he had vanished.
They consoled themselves
with the thought, " He
must have left us to teach
other people somewhere
else." Acorns may be
eaten raw ; their flour is
baked into bread, or
cooked to mush. They
are also browned and
brewed to make * coffee.'
The manifold uses of
plant products are widely
developed by the agricul-
turists, who know how to
transform the cultivated
plants into a variety of
foods. The manioc root
of the cassava shrub is
made into * cheese ' by
the Guarani of Paraguay by fermenting roots for a week in the
swamps. The mushy substance obtained is also dried in the sun
and pounded into flour, from which the tasty mandio mbedju
pancakes are baked. The peeled root is either boiled in water
or minced, dried, pulverized, and baked in fat as popis. The
unpeeled root is often baked in the hot ashes.
The taro (Colocasia) of the South Seas, of Africa, and of Malaya
requires long and careful preparation. The Melanesian house-
wife, for instance, carries the taro roots home from the fields
in the basket on her back. She then makes a roaring fire and
peels the vegetables with a shell knife. She bundles the clean
roots, wraps them in banana leaves, adds a second layer of about
twenty taro leaves, and ties the whole bundle together with lianas.
According to the size of her family and the number of guests,
she may need a series of such bundles for an adequate meal. She
often prepares similar bundles containing left-over peels and some
J
BANTU WOMEN POUNDING FLOUR AND
KNEADING DOUGH
After Haberlandt
154 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
young taro leaves for the pigs. After the fire has burnt down
she removes the hot stones from the hearth and places the taro
bundles in the smouldering pit, covering them with the hot stones
and a layer of sand. After two hours the bundles are taken out,
ready for the table once the wrappings have been removed. The
pigs, as Kramer-Bannow tells us, impatiently expect their share.
They are so well kept that their " tender, tasty meat is as fine as
veal/'
Another fundamental food plant of the South Seas is sago,
the marrow of the sago palm, which is cut down, split open, and
serves as a wooden mould in which the marrow is minced on
the spot. With the help of an ingenious sieving device, it is
washed and kneaded in a river, which carries away the floury
particles and leaves the desired sago lumps. After drying, these
are either baked into flat, hard bread or cooked into a jelly-like
mush. For the preparation of the all-important coconut which
furnishes ' meat ' and juice and oil, multi-shaped crackers, graters,
and smashers have been invented.
What the cassava, the taro, and many similar plants like the
bread-fruit, the mangrove, etc., are to other continents, the banana
or plantain is to the natives of Africa. It is, indeed, the ' bread '
of the Negroes. Often it is roasted or made into soup or gravy.
Banana flour is obtained from the green fruit, which is peeled,
cut into pieces, and mashed. Pepper and salt are added, and
dumplings are made which, cooked in water or palm oil, form the
basis of many African meals. Meat, fowl, and fish of all kinds
abound in Africa, where practically everything is used for food,
from insects, rats, and alligator eggs to elephants and ostriches.
The main African meal is usually in the evening when the
heat decreases. Friendly groups turn their gatherings into cele-
brations. There are dances and shows and music, and the story-
tellers transform the black night into a colourful stage on which
the figures of their imaginations go through strange adventures
and mystical experiences. The Shilluk eat only after sunset and
consider it a disgrace to eat during day-time under the bright
skies.
One of the strangest African delicacies, especially of the west
and the regions adjoining the Sudan, is clay or earth. Plischke
remarks that u persons of high rank eat daily up to three such
' rolls.' " Fine, fat earth also is used for seasoning and is sold
in roasted disks or granulated like flour.
Geophagy, which is the practice of eating earth, is found in
many other places, including South America, China, and Indonesia.
HAVING A GOOD TIME 155
The Tatu of California mix their maple flour with red clay.
' Stone butter ' or ' mined flour ' was eaten in times of need in
Germany and Russia. During the seventeenth century the noble-
women of Spain developed such a craving for the tasty earth of
Ertemoz that State and Church had to lay heavy penalties on this
' vice.'
The more palatable mineral known as salt is not known to
all peoples. Many hunting and food-gathering tribes do not use
it directly. They season their foods with plants and with the
spicy ashes of certain woods.
On the other hand, some African tribes, who count salt among
the most valuable possessions of man, go long distances to get it
by trading and, if it is otherwise unobtainable, get it from the
swamp plants by an exceedingly complicated process.
No people, however, can subsist without water, which may
be ' seasoned ' by the addition of cherished plant ingredients to
turn it into a beverage fit for social occasions. Among these
additions to drinking water tea is perhaps the most generally
used. It is believed that it came from Assam to China, where
its popularity grew from the fourth century A.D., although an
ancient document has been found, dating back to 59 B.C., in
which an obstinate slave is ordered in humorous verse to " boil
tea and fill utensils.'' The earliest use of tea was for medical
purposes. The leaves were eaten with rice, ginger, salt, orange-
peel, and milk, and even boiled with onions.
Its stimulating qualities and its aromatic flavour make tea one
of the most ' social ' drinks of the world. Tea ceremonies be-
long to the most finely developed traditions of Asia. The indis-
pensable tea of Paraguay, wrongly known as * mate,' the name
of the calabash from which it is sipped with the bombilla, has
especially stimulating effects. No party among the Indians
would be complete without it.
What coffee, the other warm beverage that conquered the
world, can taste like is known only to those who have sipped it
in its native continent, Africa. Named after the southern
Abyssinian province of Kaffa, from which it hails, its fifty species
are now cultivated in most tropical regions of the globe. Only
during the fifteenth century was the knowledge of it transmitted
to Arabia and Java, and not until two hundred years later did
it conquer the countries of South America and the rest of the
world.
When a group of burnous-garbed Arabs sit down at their
chess-boards to have a good time with the ' divine drink ' no
156 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
tea ceremony of Japan could outdo the tradition-honoured love
with which the host prepares coffee in the African manner.
The green beans are freshly roasted in a wooden bowl filled with
glimmering charcoals. Each bean is individually removed with a
wooden pincer and inspected. The roasted beans are then pounded
in a wooden mortar with an iron pestle and the very fine powder is
put in a vessel of water, which is brought to the boiling-point. It is
then poured into an earthenware jug and blended with throe to four
other brews of coffee. After this intricate preparation the guests'
cups are filled, and a fragrance of the Arabian Nights permeates the
room to inspire the conversation of the appreciative guests.
Chocolate is another delicious - tasting beverage which has
gained wide popularity. Chocolate and cacao, from which it is
made, are the cultural property of the Indians of Central America.
They invented the drink from the cacahuatl beans of the Theobroma
cacao L. shrub. When the white explorers reached the empires of
the Toltecs and Aztecs they found not only the strange new beverage
but also that cacao beans were used as coins. Some Indians even
to-day use cacao beans as money, especially in Guatemala.
To make the beverage as the old Mexicans drank it, the cacao
beans are roasted, grated, and pulverized on a stone slab and
mixed with seasonings such as vanilla and pepper. Sugar was
unknown, and only the wealthy could afford to sweeten their
cacao either with honey or with the juice of the agave.
In 1520 the knowledge of cacao reached Europe with the Spanish
conquerors. About a hundred years later it spread from Spain
to Italy and to France, where it became tremendously popular.
The sweetened, thickened mass known as chocolate conquered
the world market only after the Dutchman, van Houten, had
found ways to free the cacao powder of its heavy oils, thereby
making the drink a much tastier one and easier to digest.
Although cacao is the classic drink of its native Central America,
and although the plant is now cultivated in many tropical places,
it was a beverage of primitive man only within a rather limited
region and has not had large effects upon primitive cultures as a
whole. Only the initiative of the white man and his business
sense helped chocolate to its present position in the world market.
As pleasant as the enjoyment of a stimulating beverage is the
habit of chewing some substance, the juices of which, together
with the act of chewing, often have a soothing effect on the nerves.
For the primitives of Melanesia, Micronesia, East India, and
the Malayan Archipelago the chewing of betel from the areca
nut is a supreme pleasure. Indian merchants brought the know-
HAVING A GOOD TIME
ledge of this treat to East Africa, where it keeps the natives' jaws
busy most of the time. As a gesture of hospitality, the welcome
guest is offered a packet of this special ' chewing
gum.' The packet contains a slice of the areca
nut, powdered with lime or coral rag, and
wrapped in a fresh leaf of the betel-pepper
plant. It has a refreshing if bitter taste, but
has the disadvantage of discolouring the teeth
with a blackish tint and dyeing an addict's gums
an unappealing brown colour. The habit of
betel-chewing has produced a wide range of
carved or otherwise fancily decorated containers
for holding the favourite ingredients.
Similar lime boxes were carried around by the
ancient Chibchas of Colombia, who were especi-
ally fond of another chewing stimulant, the coca.
Long before modern science recognized the
medical qualities of cocaine, which comes from
BETEL-BOX
Timor
After Hambrnch
the leaves of the Erythroxylon coca shrub, the natives of Colombia,
Bolivia, and Peru chewed the bitter leaves with lime to experience
the sensation of new vigour that it quickly produces. Especially
in the white world, the over-
indulgence in cocaine, pre-
pared in more sophisticated
and dangerous combinations,
has led to most tragic results,
which are counteracted by
legislation in all civilized
nations.
Other famed stimulants that
have caused much misery to
entire nations are opium, which
comes from poppy seed, and
the dangerous hemp known
since Marco Polo's times as
' the key to Paradise.' The
word * assassin ' is derived
from the name of the hemp addicts, the hachiches, who, during
their rages of hashish drunkenness, were used centuries ago by
the old Sheik al Chebel to kill his enemies. To anyone interested
in hashish, Baudelaire's Paradis artificiels is a classic description of
glowing, bizarre, and frightening visions described by a great artist
whose own health was ruined by it.
NARCOTIC DATURA
PLANT
SPINY CAPSULE
OF THE
JAMESTOWN
WEED
After W. E. Safford
158 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
The smoking of hemp and opium was probably known to the
prehistoric Lake Dwellers, as extant implements indicate. Indeed,
many primitive peoples had thorough knowledge concerning
narcotic drugs derived from various plants drugs which they
ate, snuffed, or drank in concoctions.
In the primitive world, however, the desire to let the mind
sojourn in * artificial paradise ' often had religious reasons. When
tribesmen get together to enjoy the state of visionary drunkenness
SIXTEENTH-CENTURY REPRESENTATION OF THE * BLACK
DRINK' CEREMONY OF NORTHERN FLORIDA
After Le Moyne (1564)
caused by a drug their gathering is mostly of a ritual nature. In
some tribes only the medicine man knows the magic of the drug ;
in others, the soldiers bolster their courage by artificial means
just before a battle. Probably the only tribes of the acquisitive
economic stage who knew opiates are the Australians, who use a
woven container to hold the cherished pituri leaves (Duboisia
Hopwoodii) which they chew to project themselves into a dreamlike
state of mind.
In New Guinea nonda, a wild mushroom which makes the
user temporarily insane, is eaten ' in times of great excitement.'
Many American Indians are fully familiar with intoxicating drugs.
Among the many species used by them are the * Jamestown weed *
of the Zufii, the peyotl cactus (used by many mystical cults on
the North American prairies, in Mexico, and elsewhere), the
narcotic piptadenia snuff, the ' black drink ' of Florida, and the
HAVING A GOOD TIME
notorious marijuana which figures so frequently to-day in American
juvenile delinquency.
There is a difference between these drugs and
the lighter stimulants, between excess and modera-
tion. Only fanatics can deny the beneficial in-
spiration that comes to the human mind from
one of the oldest providers of joy and friendly
hospitality tobacco. Its blue clouds have pro-
vided the touch of intimacy to any place where
friends get together to exchange their opinions ;
they have inspired many an inventor and philo-
sopher with creative ideas in his quiet den. Even
saints and monks have not resisted the silent TUCANO INDIAN
company of a contemplative smoke.
Modern scientists are not unanimous in their
opinions about the origin of the tobacco-smoking
custom. Although Lindblom stated in 1947 that
"probably every one is now agreed that tobacco reached America
from the Old World," many contemporary students of this ques-
tion still believe with Nordenskiold that "snuff, cigarettes, cigars,
TOBACCO PIPES
SMOKING CIGAR
IN CIGAR-
HOLDER
Cherokee Pipe of Black Stone
Tobacco Pipe
Wood
Pangwe, West Africa
After G. Tessmann
Pipe of the Yakuts
Museum of Ethnology, Hamburg
Tobacco Pipe
Clay
Pangwe, West Africa
After G. Tessmann
pronged cigar-holders, and tobacco-pipes are Indian inventions."
Be that as it may, the first white men who came to the American
continent were amazed by the native habit of "producing smoke
i6o
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
from an herb held in the mouth " and took the knowledge home with
them. Early in the sixteenth century it was popular as a remedy
against toothache, gout, and many other
ailments. Jean Nicot, a French ambassador
at the Portuguese court, introduced it to
the royal circles of his country. He won
fame as the inventor of the nicotiana, that
BUNDLED CIGARS AND 'healing herb > whose powderized leaves
were given as a medicine to the son of
Catherine of Medici.
The use of tobacco for smoking became
popular in Europe only at a much later date.
Since then the controversies among the
enemies of the * devil's herb ' and the friends of the * breath of
the gods ' have continued through the centuries. Staal, one of the
ASH-TRAY
Codex Florentine
Mexico
After Sahagun
MEXICAN SMOKER
Codex Vindebonensis
Mexico
Nationalbibliothek , Vienna
SMOKING MAYA PRIEST
Stone Relief at the Temple
of Palenque
After Abbt Brasseur
de Bourbourg
ablest historians of tobacco, is correct in his statement that " no
other plant has influenced as extensively as the tobacco the economic
and cultural life of all humanity."
Tobacco was first used for ceremonial purposes, the Indian
pipe of peace being the well-known example. The forms in
HAVING A GOOD TIME
161
which it is enjoyed vary widely, even on its native continent.
There are the * smoke rolls ' of South America ; the gigantic
cigars (the word cifar is of Central American origin) held in place
by huge carved forks by the Tucano Indians ; the eating of the
leaves practised by the California Chukchansi, the Gashowu, the
Tachi, the Wukchami, the Yaudanchi, and
the Yauelmani, among others.
Another practice is to mix the leaves
with burnt mussel-shell powder, as do
the northernmost tribes of the Pacific
Coast. Drinking a concoction of tobacco
in water is known in some places and,
according to Kroeber, " the Chukchansi
speak of being able to detect wizards after
eating tobacco." The Labrador Indians
appease the spirit of a killed bear with the
offering of a ceremonial smoke of bark
tobacco. Whenever the white man's smok-
ing herb is not available the Eskimos
depend on their own ancient brand, the
Atamaoya.
Many North American Indian tribes
cultivate their own tobacco and trade it
widely ; others gather the wild varieties.
It is the only plant cultivated by the
Yurok, otherwise a non-agricultural people.
The reaction of the natives of other
primitive regions to the introduction of
tobacco is very varied. In New Guinea,
where it is smoked as well as chewed, men,
women, and children roll their own cigars
from the traded or cultivated tobacco
leaves. In contrast to this, the Ponape
natives " never learned to appreciate the
enjoyment of tobacco." Other Pacific Islanders prefer it merely
as a * seasoning J for their betel quid. The natives of Africa,
however, have become regular addicts of the herb. Albert
Schweitzer calls the Lambarene region " this land of the chronic
nicotine poisoning," and states that women are even more excessive
smokers than the men. Due to their over-indulgence, they suffer
from insomnia and " go on smoking all through the night, to dull
their nerves." An employee of the British- American Tobacco
Company wrote about the East African Kavarondos : " We
6
WOODEN PIPE-BOWL
Haida Indians
Museum of Ethnology,
Berlin
i6a
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
packed our cigarettes in boxes of four, because the Kavarondos
smoke four at a time, putting one in
each corner of the mouth, and one in
each nostril."
The Pangwe cultivate four varieties
of tobacco. The Nuer * improve ' the
taste of tobacco by added mixtures of
ashes and cow-dung, and smoke the
blend in enormous clay pipes with
pumpkin bowls. From the simple
tubular pipe to the red and black
North American models carved from
the ' holy pipe-stone,' to the richly
decorated clay, slate, and wooden
pipes of the world, receptacles for
the * divine herb ' have been shaped
by all peoples in manifold varieties.
Many African tales explain the origin
of tobacco as a supernatural gift of
the black man's gods. The glowing
pipes of the jungle belong to the very
conception of the enjoyment of life at
its best.
Among
the tobacco
pipes of the high cultures the water pipe
of India, China, Persia, and Arabia is
perhaps the most picturesque. It is an
apparatus consisting of a water-filled
container, usually a coconut or an ostrich
egg-shell or a clay or porcelain vessel,
topped by a tube carrying the tobacco-
filled pipe head. The user inhales the
cool water - cleaned smoke through a
special mouthpiece attached to a thin
tube which is connected with the con-
tainer. Groups of Mussulmans like to
sit together in the evening in the shade
of their yards, discussing the world and
themselves while peacefully sucking the
smoke, often from different tubes all
attached to one narghile (from the Persian nargil, * coconut ').
The Arabian and Indian water pipe, the hookah, has found its
primitive imitators in many regions of Africa.
PIPE-BOWL
Clay
North Cameroons
Museum of Ethnology,
Cologne
HOOKAH WATER-PIPE
Africa
Museum of Ethnology,
Leipzig
HAVING A GOOD TIME
163
When we think of a group of men smoking and having a good time
the picture of amicable exchange of thoughts and of tall-story
telling is incomplete without one of the oldest lifters of the spirit
a container filled with an alcoholic beverage of some kind.
Alcohol is by no means a product of civilization. The aperitif
served on a silver tray in the cafes of the Champs-filysees, the
whisky of the English clubs, the wines of the Moselle, the Rhine,
and the Champagne all have their forerunners in the beers and
wines of the primitive agriculturists, and in the fermented milk
drinks of the early herdsmen.
The making of alcohol requires the dis-
covery of the process of fermentation, which
probably came about in a relatively simple
way. Perhaps some primitive who had
crumbled his bread into a container filled
with water noticed, the next day, bubbles
rising to the surface and a solid substance
at the bottom of the vessel. Tasting this
' water/ he found himself getting into an
unusually merry mood, so he decided to go
further into the matter. Another savage
might have cut the stem of an agave, and
after drinking its juice carried the rest
home in his calabash. A few hours later,
observing that the juice in the container
had undergone a change, he tasted the stuff A f ter Hans s P rer (H98)
and found it worthy of investigation.
All alcoholic beverages fall into two general types : wine, in which
the alcohol is created directly from sugar,, and beer, in which the
alcohol is produced from sugar by the addition of starches. A side
branch is the fermentation of lactose (milk sugar) in the milk drinks
of the herdsmen.
Among the wines of primitive tribes palm wine is one of the
most widely known varieties. Often, the trees are cut down and
their crowns raised on a supporting structure. All along the
upper surface of the trunk, openings the size of a child's hand
are cut. A small fire is started beneath, and the juice accumulating
in the openings is collected in calabashes. It is then put in con-
tainers which are covered, stored away, and left for fermentation.
After three to four days the beverage is ready for consumption,
and the drinking bouts which are just as popular in the jungle
as in our cocktail lounges can begin. In tropical climates the juice
drained off in the morning ferments by noon and foams over the
top of the container. The fermentation is caused by yeast germs
EUROPEAN BAR
TOWARDS THE END
OF THE MIDDLE AGES
164 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
from the air. They change the sugar of the juice into alcohol
and carbonic acid. The substance which settles at the bottom of
the container is yeast.
Many African tribes obtain their palm wine without felling the
tree. They climb and tap the tree at the top, where the juicy
young shoots come out. This is done in the evening. In the
morning, by which time the drink is ready, the calabashes in the
trees are a welcome sight to the thirsty the innkeeper's sign in
the jungle. The yellowish, effervescing palm wine of thfe Pangwe
has t( a strange fine flavour which
one never forgets. "
Pulque, the forerunner of which
was the octli of the Aztecs, is made
from the huge shaft of the agave
flower. Many North American
Indian tribes brew their wine
from cactus plants, like the
STILL FOR THE DISTILLATION Papago who use the saguaro fruit
OF PALM-WINE and during wine time have a
Moluccas series of elaborate festivals during
After Martin which the medicine men perform
rain magic. Maize, sweet potatoes,
manioc, and sugar-cane furnish the drinks for the celebrations
of all tropical merry-makers.
The Khonds of India make their wine from the salopo gaxo
palm-tree, which furnishes twenty to twenty-five litres of wine
daily ; during blossom-time they " do nothing but drink/' It is
the time of boundless merry-making and dancing. The Meginakan
festival of Borneo is an elaborate affair which only the wealthy
can afford. Their nassi wine is obtained from rice. Gongs are
beaten when it is ready, and pigs and fowl are prepared in huge
quantities to feed the celebrants.
Beer is a favourite drink of the Apache, who obtain it from
mescal tubers. The Neoze of eastern Bolivia brew it mostly
from wild honey, maize, or yucca. Some tribes speed up the
fermentation by kneading ; others by chewing the ingredients.
African brewers are even more numerous than the wine manu-
facturers. Every one who has ever penetrated the Dark Continent
has been invited to join the happy celebrants of whole villages
in native ' beer gardens.'
The customary beer of the primitive Himalaya tribes, is the
maruwa, obtained from millet and other grains. Their " steins/'
in which the beverage is brewed, are bamboo sections with banana
HAVING A GOOD TIME
i6 S
KIRGHIZ STILL
After K. Weule
leaves for covers. The drinkers sip it with small tubes and fill
the container again and again with hot water, until the brew has
lost its stimulating qualities. The Buddhist monks, not unlike
their colleagues in other parts of the world, are the most expert
brewers of this beer.
The invention of distillation,
which results in beverages with
higher alcoholic content, is a matter
of speculation. Perhaps the rays of
the tropical sun, heating a vessel
containing wine, caused small drops
to accumulate on the inside of the
cover and these drops were found
to be of a more concentrated nature
than those in the container. With
the elongation of the cover and the addition of a cooling system
for the alcoholic vapours, the distillery apparatus was created.
This is the way the natives of the Moluccas make brandy from
palm wine. Java, Siam, Ceylon, and the Malabar coast are the
regions where more intricate distillery apparatus have led to the
manufacture of multiple types of brandy.
Missionaries of the year 1253 mention the
famed kumyss brandy made in the immense
territories from the Buryat Mountains in
central Siberia to northern Tibet and in the
Kirghiz region. Marco Polo tasted it on his
travels. Abul Ghazi described it in 1251 as
" clear like doubly distilled corn brandy."
Kumyss is made from the milk of camels and
donkeys and is fermented with lumps of
butter.
Tales and poetry of primitive man are full
of witticisms about drinking and drinkers.
The Haya proverb that " the beer made by
naked men is drunk by the dressed up " has
a touch of social criticism the rich enjoy what the poor produce.
The Kpando of Togo have the habit of flattering each other
when their calabashes make the rounds. The last drops of drink
are poured on the ground, and the guest gives his own drinking
name, to which others add complimentary remarks. He may say
" Da tso mo " (The snake crosses the path), to which the others
add, " Medzina kpo o " (He is not afraid of the stick !). Another's
name may be Klongo (Turtle Shell), to which his friends shout,
KUMYSS-BAG
Horse-skin
Yakuts
After A. Byhan
1 66 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
" We are old turtle shells ! " (No insect or small animal can hurt
this smart creature, protected by its shell.)
There is wisdom in this drinking song of the Dusun of northern
Borneo :
Large is the pool outside,
We don't get headache
Small is the pool in the house,
And we get the headache.
They may drink from a pool of water in the field, explains
the explorer Staal, without feeling ill effects, but the little pool
in the house, namely, the vessel filled with wine, gives them a
headache.
Indeed, since the times of Anacreon and Li-Tai-Po, the song
of the wine has been sung by the poets of all ages. The Aztec
god, Xipe, was known as ' the Nocturnal Drinker.' The drinking
of pulque was restricted in the oldest times to the venerable * old
men and women/ except during the great Tecuilhuitontli feast,
when all men, women and even children were allowed to enjoy
it without restriction.
Four different kinds of beer were brewed in the Egypt of
2500 B.C., and the story of the ' divine ' origin of the beverage
dates back to 4000 B.C. One ancient tablet covered with hiero-
glyphs reads : " Do not let the drinking of beer overtake thee,
thou falleth and breaketh thy bone and none tends his hand
to thee, thy companions keep on drinking and say, ' Away with
him who is drunk ! ' " How similar are these words to their modern
version heard by the author in a small American Negro church :
" Do not be a can which the Lord opens only to find beer in it ! "
The excessive consumption of beer seems to have been common
among Egyptian students, judging from what a scholar wrote
to his pupil long before the birth of Christ : " I am told that
thou leaveth thy books and thou abandoneth thyself to pleasure ;
thou goeth from street to street every evening while the smell
of beer chaseth men away from thee and ruineth thy soul. Thou
art seen climbing walls and breaking into houses ; people flee
from thee and thou injureth them."
However, we would not do justice to the good times enjoyed
by the members of the human race if we should consider eating,
smoking, drinking, and the like as the only elements of joy and
entertainment. Dances, games, and sports events are often held
for the sake of their own virtues, and the generally playful attitude
of primitive man expresses itself in many activities of a thoroughly
sober nature.
HAVING A GOOD TIME 167
Even the primitive child comes into its right. All peoples on
earth brighten their youngsters' early years
by the invention of toys, which are created
either for the sake of play alone, or for an
educational purpose. The African Pangwe
children play a * marble ' game with round
pebbles. Palm nuts are their ninepins.
They have dolls, pea-shooters, whipping-
tops, string-pulled puppets, magic games
and puzzles, stilts, diminutive crossbows,
animal traps, and drums. They pull tows WOODEN BIRD C DANO
and run races in short, they have all the ING J ON BOW-STRING
possessions a happy child could ask for. Toy from the Santa
As for the dolls of the wilderness, the Cruz Islands
models made by the Choroti Indian women Museum of Ethnology,
for their little girls are among the strangest. Basle (after Speiser-Foy)
Often the head of the doll is so tiny that it
is hardly noticeable, and consequently they distribute the face
tattoos all over the body. Since the children of the wilderness
DOLLS
Dolls of Elm Bark and
Willow Withes
Chippewa Indians
After F. Densmore
Clay Dolls of the Choroti
Indians
' Woman ' * Woman with
Baby Girl '
Rio Pilcomayo, Bolivia
After Nordenskib'ld
i68
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
TOY HEDGEHOG
From the Ruins of Susa,
2000 B.C.
Louvre, Paris
are accustomed to the sight of the naked human body these dolls
leave nothing to the imagination.
Equally realistic were the dolls of ancient Egypt, which featured
movable arms, and wigs of woven hair, interwoven with tiny
clay balls in imitation of balls of grease typical of the coiffures
of the Nubian housemaids. Another
favourite toy was * the baker at work/
a movable human figure mounted on
a board. When a string was pulled
the man moved a lump of clay back
and forth, * kneading the dough/
Dolls' houses with tiny furniture
including mirrors and movable chests
of drawers were built for the Egyptian
offspring. They had animals drawn
on strings ; crocodiles with movable
jaws. Preferred animal pets were monkeys and birds like the
hoopoe, with its spectacular head-dress.
The games of the grown-ups all over the world are as manifold
as human imagination itself, with perhaps dances predominating.
But even very primitive tribes, like the Australians, feature wrestling
matches, spear-throwing contests, ball games, and, expecially,
the string games which are also known in Polynesia, America,
Africa, and many other places of the world. All parlour games
we can possibly imagine have their
primitive prototypes and equivalents,
from memory games to games played
on boards and often based on chance
games which can ruin a man in
primitive currency as easily as the
white man's horse - races. Perhaps
the best known of all these games is the
mankala game, common to practically the entire African continent.
The Ubangi tribes, who are fanatic enthusiasts of the kuka
game, lose loads of cowrie money snails during their feverish
sessions, which are exclusively ' stag ' affairs, because, as the
explorer Leyder puts it : " The women do not play. They haven't
got the time."
Some primitive tribes even play games at funerals. The spirit
of the deceased is supposed to take part in determining the winner
and the loser. This custom is especially developed among South
American Indian tribes. One such game has been very vividly
described by the ethnologist Karsten :
A I -J < ^ I _^ | 4 | 4 L -^
J ra m r* nanana
GAME BOARD
Pangwe, West Africa
After G. Tessmann
HAVING A GOOD TIME 169
The rest of the night is spent in playing another kind of game,
with burning balls of cotton. Upon the board which was placed
on the stomach of the dead Indian a small cotton ball is made and
set on fire. The playing men arrange themselves on both sides
of the corpse and blow the burning cotton hither and thither upon
the board, keeping the small ball in constant motion. Each player
who finds the ball in front of himself immediately blows it to the
other side, from where another player blows it in another direction,
and so forth. The aim of the game is to nullify all dangers of
contagion proceeding from the dead body, since it is feared that the.
disease-demon may carry off other persons among the relatives
surviving.
This sombre purpose, however, does not prevent the par-
ticipants from full enjoyment of the fever of the game. The
general South American custom of making a feast for the living
out of the memory of the dead is strong even in to-day's modern
cities. There is not much difference between the * food offered
to the dead on the Day of the Souls ' by the Quiche-speaking
Indians of Ecuador and to-day's modern Mexican habit of selling
candy skulls with fancy sugar decorations on the streets on the
' Day of the Souls/ gifts fondly exchanged by lovers, with their
initials in sugar on the top.
The frigate bird of the South Seas also furnishes many oppor-
tunities for joyous sports. Although its keeper is a ' holy ' man,
who wears his feather bracelet as the mystical ' husband ' of the
spirit of the soul bird, as the Doge of Venice wore a ring as husband
to the sea, the frigate-bird worship is a popular sport, especially
among the islanders of Naoero. The birds must first be tamed.
Property marks indicating their individual owners are cut into their
wings and tails so that they can be easily recognized while in the
air. The whole neighbourhood gets excited when a new bird has
been tamed. * Oreita mena ' (* Now he begs ') is a call of joy. The
owners carefully feed the birds with fish, and give them drinking
water from their own mouths. When they are tame enough to be
attached permanently to their masters they are let free again. Then
they can take part in contests with other birds, in which the height
of their flight and similar skills are judged.
Most birds of the islands and there are many species are
tamed and trained by the native sportsmen. Among them is the
nocturnal ederakui, whose name has become the nickname of native
Don Juans. Cock-fights, pig-fights, and fish-fights are the order
of the day. Although dragon-flies are * reincarnations of the
departed/ the children tame them and keep them near home on a
170 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
branch of a tree, from which they attack any fellow dragon-flies
flying by, to the great joy of the onlookers.
This type of game is a regular sport, but in primitive pastimes
the border-line between play and sport is often hard to draw.
The simple sport of walking is not popular. It is too natural to
be noticed. Even if primitive hikers, often heavily laden with
bulky packs, walk great distances over difficult terrain, they are not
considered to have achieved a record. Running also evokes little
admiration. It is too necessary for earning a livelihood to be
regarded as a special sport by peoples who run a game animal to
death in steady pursuit, like the Australians, the Bushmen, and the
Hottentots with whom, Peter Kolb reported in 1719, no man on
horseback was able to hold pace. Other extraordinarily gifted
runners are the Tarahumare who live in the Sierra Madre Moun-
tains of northern Mexico. They are recognized even by other
tribes as ralamari y or runners. They can run distances of over two
hundred miles without stopping. The Geri, who live on Tiburon
Island in the Gulf of California, can run a strong deer to death.
They are able to catch up with a galloping horse within a short
time. They train from earliest childhood, and their slender, well-
proportioned bodies and the sheer love of their own strength make
such performances possible.
Climbing, in which similar astounding records are set, also is
not recognized as a sport in primitive societies, although the
climbing abilities displayed in reaching fruits in the tops of tall
trees, taking eggs from birds' nests, cutting wild honeycombs, etc.,
are often so impressive that even onlookers of similar skill reward
their best men with expressions of special esteem.
The sport that most attracts primitive fans is high jumping,
which the Watusi of East Africa, a tribe of exceptionally tall and
slender build, consider the expression of admirable virility. No
young man who cannot jump as high as his own body measures is
accepted as grown up. Using low termitaries and similar objects
as jumping boards, they reach heights averaging eight feet without
effort.
The throwing of objects is the favourite sport of many peoples,
with the stone perhaps the oldest discus. The sure hands of these
skilled hunters and the very nature of many of their weapons train
them to early mastership in this sport. The connoisseurs among
the North American Indian spectators value the finesse of the player
and his skill and versatility much more highly than the actual
strength he displays. Pieces of sugar-cane, beaver teeth, nuts, or
lumps of clay are used as darts, and fixed rules determine the course
HAVING A GOOD TIME 171
of the play, in which two groups compete against each other.
Among the Zuni the showialtowe dart game is of ceremonial sig-
nificance, its equipment being consecrated on the altar of the war
god, the patron saint of the game.
The boomerang, that ancient hunting and sports tool of the
Australians, migrated also to other parts of the globe. It is found
among some North American Indian tribes, in India and in Egypt,
where whole army divisions were equipped with it until the end of
the nineteenth century. The spear duel, often customary as a
method of deciding inter- tribal feuds, is regarded as a supreme
expression of sportsmanship in the Fiji Islands, in America, in
Africa, and in New Guinea.
Among the sports which are a source of joy to the high cultures,
as well as to the most primitive tribes, are wrestling matches, which
draw thunderous applause everywhere, from Australia to Brazil,
from Africa to Finland, from Polynesia to the Caucasus, from
south-east Asia to Japan, where the sumotori rank among the
national heroes.
Boxing is equally cherished in all forms of civilization. The
native king of the Tonga Islands ordered boxing matches to be
held at regular intervals by his subjects. The primitive boxing
glove is either non-existent or is a thick string padding. On the
Mortlock Islands shark's teeth turn the boxing hand into a dan-
gerous weapon the man who falls down first is the loser. Even
umpires are known at primitive sporting events. In Hawaii he
interferes when unfair moves are made, or when the fight lasts too
long. He separates the fighters with a wooden stick.
Swimming is not regarded as a sport, but surf-riding on wooden
boards leads to keen contests on the Polynesian Islands, the winner
being the man who first reaches the beach without toppling over.
Perhaps the most popular sport of all is the ball game, that age-
old favourite of Indians, Negroes, Europeans, and Egyptians. Most
of our well-known games have their roots in primitive tribal ball
games. These games often had magical or symbolic meanings
an evidence of their venerable age.
When the whaling season draws near, the Makah Indians play
hockey with a whalebone for a ball and a bat symbolizing the war-
god's club. In an ancient Aztec codex, the gods of light and
darkness play ball with each other ; and it was one of the duties of
the ancient Mexican rulers to watch, at midnight, the stellar con-
stellation of Ursa Major, known to their people as the ' ball-play
arena of the stars.' Ball games, especially of the North American
Indians, are so various that they are worthy of study in themselves.
172
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
Lacrosse and other two-goal games, such as shinny and pogatowan,
use balls of different sizes and shapes. Most often they are made
of soft leather such as deerskin, and stuffed with grass or plant
fibres. The prototype of the European soccer ball is the football
of the Eskimos, made of stuffed hide and about the size of the
college model.
The balls of ancient Egypt consisted of two hemispheroidal
shells of leather or fine linen, stuffed with straw or finely cut reed
^ 1:7
- ^/K
(l) SHINNY BALLS < KICK BALL >
AND STICKS M , T ,.
Mandan Indians
Mono Indians Aftef p Demmore
(2) RACKET
Passamaquoddy Indians
Field Columbian
Museum
and sewn together to form a ball of about four inches in diameter.
Smaller balls of multi-coloured siliceous earth were very fragile
and brought out the dexterity of skilled players.
The difference between mere pastimes or entertainment and
regular feasts and celebrations was sharply developed in the high
cultures. Victory celebrations, anniversaries, weddings, religious
and national holidays are held at set dates and can be determined
in advance, a mental and time-conscious approach which is com-
pletely alien to the primitive mind. All the different ways in
which the general, spontaneous, and indefinite good times of the
children of nature express themselves informally are co-ordinated
in the great official celebrations of the classic and pre- classic times.
Pompous parades, dances, shows, games, eating and drinking
feasts are combined in great celebrations. These celebrations are
sanctioned by Church, State, and society.
The Chibcha divided their year into three well-defined parts,
HAVING A GOOD TIME 173
one of which was dedicated to feasts. For the Mohammedan, the
time of joy begins after the Ramadan ; for the Catholic, it ends
with Ash Wednesday. The feasts of civilization have been co-
ordinated by plan. Whoever the host family, group, club,
government, Church, or nation planned and purposeful conven-
tion has entered our merry-making. This may make our parties
and feasts more glamorous, but whether it allows them to equal
the spirit of gay improvisation, the hilarious joy of being happy for
the sake of happiness that characterizes the blissful gathering of the
jungle and of the prairies, we may well wonder.
CHAPTER SEVEN
On the Roads of Land and Water
WHEN OUR GLEAMING cars whiz over the highways, when our
railways carry speed-breaking trains to their destination, a
feeling of high achievement often inflates the ego of the modern
traveller. We are * going places/
BLACKFOOT TRAVOIS
American Museum of Natural History, New York
Yet, although the vehicles of our travel and their speed would,
even a century ago, have seemed fantastic, the use and construction
of roads which bring the immense distances of the globe closer
together the roads of strategy and of trade belong to the oldest
achievements of mankind. The necessity of using an important
trail again and again, whether it was the path to the next water-hole
or the caravan route over mountains and through the desert, has
174
ON THE ROADS OF LAND AND WATER 175
created streets of venerable age. When a path was cleared through
jungle growth, rocks, trees, and other obstacles, precious time could
be won. The places where food and water abounded could be
reached more quickly, and travellers were protected on their
journeys to the trading places. The danger of being lost in the
wilderness was considerably reduced when directions were con-
fidently marked by roads ; neighbours could be visited and new
areas explored. The great migrations of peoples and the trans-
mittal of cultural elements were facilitated by the roads. Roads
are the great symbols of peace or war, the bonds between men and
ideas since the dawn of time.
Along these all-important arteries the traffic between tribes and
peoples, between villages and markets, between the coast and the
interior, pulsed in the olden times as it does to-day. The story of
the great roads of history is the story of history itself.
In Africa the caravans and safaris have moved from Lake Chad
and Timbuktu to the North Coast, from the Nile and Niger through
the Sudan where Sokoto, Kano, and similar centres of trade
attracted the merchants. Legendary is the ancient road from Egypt
to the Columns of Hercules. The entire Dark Continent was and
is to-day lined by a network of trails from the Mediterranean to
the interior.
In Europe the Danubian culture of prehistoric times sprang up
along the banks of the proud river and became the centre of cultural
exchange through the millenniums. The ancient * salt streets ' of
Europe which enabled the distribution of the mineral from the
mines to the trading centres of the interior have maintained this
name even to-day Reichenhall and Halle on the Saale were their
terminals, and the Danube, the Elbe, and the Loire were their
trade routes.
In Asia Minor the road from Baghdad to Basra is of immortal
memory since the tales of the Arabian Nights ; and on the roads
between the Ural Mountains and the Caspian Sea waves after
waves of migrating peoples streamed into Europe. Marco Polo's
travels followed the ancient ' silk roads ' from Samarkand to the
Hindu Rush, from the Gobi to Peiping. On these silk roads the
precious Chinese fabric moved from Central and Anterior Asia into
the Roman Empire. Trade relations between them began in
114 B.C. Ptolemseus reports that the travel from Liangchow, then
the capital of China, to the Pamir Plateau took seven months.
In America the great trading expeditions of the Mayas moved
every year over great distances. The natives even mapped the
famed road from Xicalano, through the primeval forests to the
176
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
gold regions of Honduras, on which Cortes moved during his
adventurous expedition of 1524-25.
Primitive trails are not so spectacular, but they are certainly
equally old or older. Having more the character of direction
markers than of roads, their course is largely determined by the
difficulties of the country ; they wind through the continents in
short cuts and mountain passes, as the terrain allows. The covered
wagons of the American pioneers travelled the ancient trails of the
red man ; many state and federal highways follow old Indian paths.
TOW BRIDGE
Peru
After K. Weule
The Louisiana road from Chinuba to Lake Pontchartrain is still
known as the Indian Road, and a highway in Colorado is laid on
the Sante Fe Trail.
We saw that the great rivers of the earth are important deter-
minants in the migrations of goods and men. The names of the
Nile, Hwang Ho, Euphrates, Tigris, St Lawrence, Missouri,
Mississippi, and Amazon are closely related to the history of man-
kind through the millenniums. The river roads stimulated mer-
cantile exchange and created cultural centres. The rivers of the
Lower Congo have transformed whole tribes into trading peoples
a phenomenon repeated all over the globe.
To connect these mighty water roads by the building of canals
is one of the earliest architectural achievements of man. Great
was the fame of the Emperor Yang-ti (605-618) whose experts
constructed the glorious Emperor Canal. In the regions of the
Amazon early efforts solved the problem of the annual floods by
ON THE ROADS OF LAND AND WATER 177
building numerous canals, especially in the Mojos province, and
modern scientists are inclined to believe that the mighty waterway
between the Orinoco and the Rio Negro is the work of human hands.
While rivers and waterways may connect countries and peoples,
they are often apt to hinder the traveller who must cross them to
LIANA BRIDGE
Guatemala
After Sapper
reach his destination. To overcome this drawback, and so extend
roads even over intersecting waters, man invented the bridge.
Primitive tribes have worked out many methods of getting over
rivers and abysses, methods which vary from the simplest devices
to structures of great technical complication and stability.
In the rocks of the Himalayas primitive herdsmen have hollowed
out holes in which the traveller inserts bamboo rungs to climb
either upwards or downwards, slowly and perilously. Bamboo
canes may be used to bridge an abyss. Tows of yak hair are
affixed from tree-tops on opposite sides of a stream and used like
bos'un's chair rigs, with the traveller hanging from a stick or small
i 7 8
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
woven seat attached to the tow. The tow bridge fixed on both
sides of an abyss is a customary device used by Peruvian Indians of
the Andes. The Aymaras of South America build floating bridges ;
the Huari balance forward on bamboo poles laid across a stream,
and the Quiche use cantilever constructions. One or two lianas,
spanning a river, are used as bridges by the Botocudos and Siriones.
Among the finest achievements of primitive bridge builders are
the famed interwoven liana bridges of complicated structure which
can be found as a cultural property of many tribes of Melanesia,
Africa, South America, India, and Indo-China. Such web-like
POLE BRIDGE
Chibcha
After Bolinder
bridges are solidly interwoven and have the shape of a long, semi-
circular basket, the sides of which reach to the hips or shoulders of
the passer. Trees or poles rammed in along the shore serve as
anchoring posts for the liana bindings which are often also attached
to rocks or tree trunks protruding from the water. A firm rail
prevents the traveller from being swept off his feet by the current.
The simplest wooden bridge is naturally the felled trunk laid
across a small brook, but when the river is broad magnificent
timber structures are erected, with complicated spans balancing
over forks and poles. In the Cameroons, in Melanesia, and in
Colombia the intricate shapes of such structures are surprising in
their symmetry and architectural beauty.
Over land and water, over trail and bridge, thus travels man, to
carry himself and his goods and provisions to his place of destina-
tion. For mountain-climbing, walking canes are customary, but
in regions where the great wood-carvers live, for instance in Africa
and on Borneo, simple staffs soon assume more pretentious shapes
and become insignia of rank or even expressions of magic powers.
When it comes to the carrying of loads, there is no people on
earth which does not know of some method to make burdens easier
ON THE ROADS OF LAND AND WATER
179
to handle. Head loads may be supported by woven rings or by
stuffed pads, and the weight of the burden carried on the back may
AZTEC CARRYING DEVICES
After Codex Mendoza
be conveniently distributed over the entire body by the carrying
strap, head-band, or tump-line. This carrying aid is especially
typical of Asia and of the North and South American Indian tribes,
but it also occurs in Africa. Mostly, the
tump-line is attached to a basket supported
on the back, or to a ladder-like structure
such as the cacaxtli of the ancient Mexicans,
whose head-band was called mecapalli.
Burdens on the back are not necessarily
lifeless the Asiatic and North American
manner of carrying babies on the mother's
back is comfortable for both. South
American Indians often prefer to carry their
babies in a broad woven band slung round
the mother's shoulder, but they also use
ladder-like frames into which the baby is
laced during the mother's wanderings. The
large amphoras of the Incas featured two
special handles near the bottom, through CLAY VASE > SHOWING
which strings could be slung to make it pos-
sible to carry the huge vessels on the back,
instead of in the customary manner on the
head. But while in earlier cultures the
human beast of burden is a general sight, since the carrying of heavy
loads is the lot of all mortals, the feudalistic caste of the ancient
high cultures look down upon their poorer brethren of the burden-
carrying lower caste. Many a noble Singhalese wears curved combs
CARRYING METHOD
OF CUZCO AMPHORA
After Bdssler
i8o
(i)
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
(2)
(3)
INDIAN WOMAN
CARRYING BABY
ON TUMP-LINE
THE TUMP-LINE IN ALASKA
AND MEXICO
MOBALI WOMAN
CARRYING WATER
Belgian Congo
American Museum of Natural History, New York: (2) after drawings
(3) after a photograph
on his head to demonstrate that his people have never borne
burdens on their heads.
The simplest hand luggage is the carrying net
known to very many peoples, especially in America ;
leather bags are its equivalent in Africa and Asia.
The braided and woven bags and baskets of all
kinds, the conical burden baskets of Asia and
America, and the square, stiffer African varieties,
all serve the same purpose : to keep goods together
and to facilitate their transport.
The carrying beam or * coolie ' yoke is of very
ancient origin. It consists of one long piece of
strong wood balanced on the neck and counter-
weighted by loads suspended at either end. Since
the weights of these loads must be equal for the
sake of balance this device is best suited for water-
containers of identical shape and size or for identical bundles. Its
classic place of origin is Asia, but the discoverers of South America
' COOLIE ' YOKE
Mexican Indians
After Oviedo
ON THE ROADS OF LAND AND WATER l8l
found it among the natives of some parts of that continent ; and
Nordenskiold tells us of the sufferings of the Indians when the
Spaniards forced them to carry loads on their back rather than on
the yoke as they were accustomed to do.
The beam, on which two or more men carry between them a
suspended load, applies another technical principle and allows the
easy handling of all kinds of heavy objects, from the carcasses of
hunted animals and heavy signal drums to the bodies of the de-
parted. This method of transportation is common in Africa, Asia,
the South Seas, and some South American regions.
The privilege of being carried about by one's fellow- men is
enjoyed only by rulers, dignitaries, and persons whose sight is to
be hidden from their surroundings for some
reason or other. The litter in which such
distinguished riders are carried was developed
from the carrying beam. A settee or ham-
mock is attached to two or four poles which
are supported by the footmen. In Africa,
where great stress is put on any device ac-
centuating the dignity of the mighty, litters
are still the favourite travelling ' coach ' of CHINE SE BAMBOO
the chieftains, princes, and the mighty whites ; LITTER
and in China it is the privilege of high officials After K. Weule
to be carried about in this fashion. In the
Chinese South it is the traditional mode of travelling for all who
are entitled to higher standards of living.
In another region of the world the caciques of the Chibcha were
thus carried about in hammocks by their slaves. The reigning
Inca of Peru was so ' holy ' that none of his subjects was allowed
to see even his face. To protect his godlike countenance he
travelled in a closed litter, preceded and followed by runners, who
had to remove all obstacles from his way. The ' curtain before
the throne/ which originated from the same conception, is a sacred
tradition of Egypt, Abyssinia, and other African regions as far
south as the Pangwe. This desire to hide the face of sacred or
revered persons developed the litter into the sedan chair, a closed
compartment carried in the ancient way. It was in common use
from the times of the Babylonians and Egyptians to classic Rome,
where especially the noblewomen travelled in this fashion. After
the Crusades it penetrated the rest of the Occident, where it became
fashionable during the seventeenth century as the porte-chaise.
The motive power in all these cases is the human body and the
weight of the burden falls most heavily on the foot. Although not
i8a
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
. 8
many primitives of the warm zones feel the necessity to protect
their feet from the strain of walking, the desire to improve their
speed or to make their footprints as indistinguishable as possible
led to the invention of multiple kinds of primitive foot-gear. There
is reasonableness in the view of the ancient explorer Mason who
calls the shoes, sandals, and moccasins of
primitive man the first actual means of trans-
portation. Where the sand of the desert is
too hot to be touched with naked soles, or
where sharp stones would cause injuries, pro-
tective f foot-gear is customary. For instance,
the Indians of the torrid Roroima region manu-
facture sandals from the leaves of the Mauritia
palm. Perhaps the most ingenious variety of
the primitive sandal is the sprinter's model of
the South African Bushmen which protects their
feet from the hot sand of the Kalahari and pre-
vents them from sinking too deeply into the
loose ground. Such sandals are part of the
regular hunting outfit of those tribes whose
members are able to pursue game by foot,
chasing it incessantly for days without allowing
the animal to rest or feed, until it breaks down
from exhaustion.
SKIS While the sandal improves the safety of the
COVERED WITH human foot on the bare soil, creepers or skates
REINDEER SKIN ma ke it possible to * run ' on the surface of the
East Yaks ice. Since palaeolithic times Asia and Europe
Museum of knew skates manufactured from bones. The
Ethnology, Hamburg Edda, that ancient literary document of Nordic
(after A. Byhari) Europe, mentions the ' ice bone/ from which,
during the thirteenth century, Holland de-
veloped wooden skates with iron blades. The all-metal skates of
our days were designed in 1850 in America. Not unlike the
ancient bone skate is the Eskimo creeper, carved from walrus
tusks, which is tied to the boots when the hunter approaches his
prey on the ice.
To glide on the snow rather than on the ice is the^purpose of skis,
whose prototypes were the * sliding woods ' of the Bronze Age.
In the far north of Europe and Asia skis were developed into forms
not unlike our present-day models, with the foot of the wearer
resting on birch-bark platforms and the lower sides of the gliders
covered with the skin of reindeer or seal. They are used with the
ON THE ROADS OF LAND AND WATER
additional aid of a pair of ski poles with bone points and small laced
hoops at the ends. The skis of the Lapps are longer and broader
than these early models, without fur coverings and in appearance
much more like our modern skis whose development as sporting
rather than hunting gadgets originated in the Norwegian hills of
Telemark. The ski is not among the cultural possessions of the
American primitives.
SNOW-SHOES
Montagnais-Naskapi
Indians, Labrador
Collection Julius E. Lips
European Alps
After G. Montandon
Eskimo of Baffinland
After F. Boas
While the ski emphasizes the idea of speed, another arctic inven-
tion, the snow-shoe, is dedicated to the purpose of walking safely
over the deep snow. This foot-gear is of the greatest importance
in all arctic regions of the world. Originating in Asia, the * snow-
shoe culture ' reached America even before the Eskimos spread out
over the northern sector of the continent, and its dissemination
reaches as far as northern California. With it travelled the moccasin,
that foot-gear of soft leather on which the foot of the hunter is
anchored to the centre of the snow-shoe by lacings of leather strings.
The arctic regions of the American continent have indeed become
the classical centre of the snow-shoe ; the much cruder European
models do not measure up to intricate American varieties.
Among the hunters of the interior of Labrador the Naskapi are
among the best-skilled craftsmen of snow-shoe manufacture. The
wooden parts are carved by the men, but the lacing is women's
work. It is fascinating to watch the manufacture of a pair of asham.
184 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
For the frame, a stick of birchwood is softened in hot water and
then bent over the knee into an arch. To force it into the right
shape the two lower ends that later form the ' tail ' are firmly tied
together with leather strings, while the centre is held open by a
strut. The average length of a Naskapi snow-shoe is about three
feet, the width at the broadest part about two feet. When the
frame is dry enough cross-studs are attached to the frame, and rows
of holes are punched into it with the bone drill. The lacing of
moistened caribou-leather strings is run through the holes by the
women in a regular pattern of firm interwoven meshes, with an
exactness and care that result in finished products of perfection.
TOBOGGAN
Montagnais -Naskapi Indians, Labrador
Collection Julius E. Lips
Finally bands are attached to the centre in a series of intricate
loops that hold the moccasin-clad foot of the wearer firmly in
place.
The hunter, thus equipped with snow-shoes, invented ages ago
the oldest device with which to haul his weapons, his provisions,
and his prey over snow and ice : the sledge. Its earliest use was
probably preceded by dragging things on animal skins. Dragging
home killed bear, moose, elk, or reindeer probably suggested the
utilization of their skins for similar purposes of transport. But
soon flat pieces of wood replaced this crude method, and the
sledge was born. Neolithic findings, especially, prove its venerable
age. In the arctic regions of Asia and Europe, particularly in
Finland and in the regions where the Lapp hunters roam, we find
its oldest form, either simply a piece of flat wood or a simple con-
struction of several boards. The toboggan of northern Canada
touches the ground with its entire flat bottom. To the Naskapi it
is the indispensable winter vehicle for hauling burdens of all types
over the snow : small children, bagged game, firewood, and the
bodies of the departed on their way to the grave. The building
material is birchwood split into boards of about fifteen feet in length
ON THE ROADS OF LAND AND WATER 185
and twelve to fifteen inches wide. The two principal boards for
the base are held together by four cross-pieces ; the upward-bent
front part is shaped with the aid of hot water, and supported by a
fifth cross-piece. Holes are drilled, and all parts are held in place by
firm lacings with caribou-leather strings. When the Indians leave
for the summer places in their canoes they store their toboggans
in the tops of the trees on their hunting grounds.
Of a more complex form are the sledges equipped with runners
used by the Eskimos and by some neighbouring Indian tribes, by
the Samoyeds, the Gilyaks, and other peoples of arctic Asia. It
may be assumed that the runner-type sledge, especially of the
Eskimos, is a comparatively recent invention. Nordenskiold traced
its origin to the Old World. The original type of Eskimo sledge is
probably the runnerless model still used by the Caribou Eskimos.
Among the Scandinavian peoples of Europe the so-called ' summer '
sledges transport timber over the sleek ground surfaces of their
coniferous woods a method which was customary in Egypt for the
hauling of heavy loads over sand and other smooth surfaces.
A fully loaded sled or sledge constitutes a weight which can
hardly be moved by the power of one man alone. It seems that
since the dawn of time man had learnt to ease his burden by making
use of the pulling power of his oldest domesticated animal com-
panion, the dog. Dog teams pulled the sledges of prehistoric man
as they pull the toboggans and other sledges in the arctic wilder-
nesses of to-day. The dog's oldest pack companion was the
reindeer, employed together with the elk in northern Europe and
Asia as a beast of burden even in modern times. Reindeer were
used for hauling before they were domesticated as dairy animals
and mounts.
This holds true also for the members of the cattle family, the
yak of Tibet being the oldest domesticated species. The water-
buffaloes of China were domesticated later. Yokes for cows or
steers have been found in the habitations of the European Lake
Dwellers, those early lovers of comfort.
The horse, known in Europe in its wild form during the Palaeo-
lithicum, was used for the moving of burdens since the Neolithic
period. Harnesses for horses have been found in the remnants of
the * band-ceramic ' period. During the third millennium B.C. the
horse came from Asia over Asia Minor to Babylon, to reach Egypt
towards the end of the Middle Empire. The North Africans,
those master raisers of thoroughbreds, began their famed tradition
in 2000 B.C. In America the horse was unknown in pre-Columbian
times.
1 86 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
In South America, long before the arrival of Columbus, the
llama and the alpaca were the animal helpers of man as they still
are. The range of Asiatic pack animals is wide indeed : dog, yak,
horse, reindeer, camel, dromedary, zebu, elephant, ass, and even
sheep pulled the vehicles of man from the dawn of time to our days.
Not all peoples on earth, however, have learnt to make use of
animal power for the purpose of moving their loads and burdens.
Australia, the South Sea Islands, Japan, and entire Negrpid Africa
originally knew no beasts of burden.
The habit of riding animals is of a more recent date than their
use for packing. However, ancient figures from the middle of the
third millennium B.C. found at Kul-Tepe show human beings
riding on the backs of animals, and the * horse-riding culture ' of
Asia is an exceedingly ancient one. In later times the North
American Indians of the plains, and South American tribes like
those of the Chaco, who rode their horses on straw-padded leather
saddles with bone splinters for spurs, took to the horse so completely
that they practically lived on horseback.
Among the tribes of the prairie, the horse replaced the dog which,
in olden times, had pulled the travois, a structure of two poles on
which a burden was tied, and which dragged on the ground behind
the animal. The travois constitutes a very ancient method of
moving bundles, tents, children, timber, and the like. Its Asiatic
form, still in use by the Kirghiz, is pulled by a camel, which in
addition to its burden also carries a rider.
It is a far cry from the bumping, bulky travois to smoother
means of transportation ; and real comfort and speed could only
be attained by that supreme invention in the field of transportation,
the wheel, which is a creation of the high cultures and unknown to
primitive man. By reducing the size of the surface that touches
the ground and by the first application of a moving circular support,
the friction caused by the weight of the load could, by means of
the wheel, be so minimized that big loads were transported with
comparatively small effort. Heavy objects, formerly * immobile,'
could now be moved by the power of man or by the power of the
animals he trained for this purpose.
The first archaeological evidences of the wheel date back to the
Mesopotamian city cultures. It is assumed that the idea of rolling
along a heavy object originated in the practice of sliding logs under
the weight to be moved a technique the Egyptians applied when
they moved the cut-stone squares used in the construction of the
pyramids. The oldest wheels consisted merely of solid discs of
wood, firmly joined to an axis that moved with the wheels. Later
EGYPTIAN CHARIOT
I40O B.C.
The Gizeh Museum of
Egyptian Antiquities,
Cairo
ON THE ROADS OF LAND AND WATER 187
modifications resulted in the invention of the nave, or hub, and the
hollowing of spaces in the centre. Gradually the intersections
between the carvings became thinner and thinner, leading during
the Bronze Age to the development of the spokes. Spoked wheels
were known in Asia Minor as early as
2700 B.C.
While the cart for moving loads was a
general means of transportation, the two-
wheeled chariot was first depicted as a
vehicle reserved only for the gods. When
mortals began to appreciate its comforts it
was reserved for the rulers, who later
shared it with the wealthy. In classical
times it was the. beloved vehicle of noble
sports. The mythical significance of the
wheel as a symbol of the sun, of the deity,
and of good luck has made it a preferred ornament ; and the
habit of celebrating the solstice by rolling burning wheels downhill
or by throwing wooden discs into the air is a reminder of the
manifold interpretations to which the wheel was connected with
the supernatural/
The two-wheeled cart is older than the
four-wheeled vehicle, while the one-wheeled
push-cart or wheelbarrow, in China often
equipped with a sail, is among the oldest
of vehicles. In the Chinese South a one-
wheeled litter facilitates the work of the
carriers who merely steer and push it. In
northern China the so-called * great wagon '
is used for long trips, with a tent-like struc-
ture mounted on two wheels. It reminds
one of the famous covered wagon of the
American pioneers.
In the wars of centuries ago the possession
of wheeled vehicles was a decisive factor of strategy. To all
students of classical literature the barricades formed by chariots and
the wheeled Roman catapults and onagers are familiar conceptions
that played important roles in ancient history.
China is the place of origin of so many great and also quaint
inventions that to many white travellers the Chinese ricksha is a
* typically Oriental ' means of transportation. But to the Chinese
it is yang ch'e, ' the foreign cart/ It is a modern American inven-
tion, just one hundred years old. The Baptist missionary, Jonathan
CHINESE WHEEL-
BARROW WITH SAIL
After M. Haberlandt
1 88 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
Goble, who lived in Yokohama, devised it with the help of a
Japanese carpenter when doctor's orders prescribed * gentle outdoor
exercise ' for the missionary's ailing wife. A shrewd Frenchman
who saw the vehicle realized its possibilities and introduced it to
China in 1847, where it appealed so greatly to the old users of the
litter and the sedan chair that it became the nucleus of a whole
industry. To-day the cities of China are enlivened by about four
hundred thousand rickshas that steer precariously among modern
automobiles. However they are doomed, and will soon become a
romantic thing of the past, because the government has come to
the conclusion that the trade of ricksha-pulling * debases a man/
although this decree does not apply to the litters and sedan chairs
sanctioned by tradition.
The development of the classical chariots and wagons into more
comfortable vehicles, from the ' surrey with the fringe on top ' to
the modern automobile, was as rapid as most of the nineteenth-
and twentieth- century technical changes. When we consider the
thousands of years that the wheel has been in use and compare it
with the history of the motor-driven car, which began at the end
of the last century, we may well wonder what future type of
vehicles will make use of the wheel.
While paths cleared the jungle for the travels of man, and bridges
spanned the abyss and the river, human ingenuity did not stop
at the waterways. Wherever the waterways of nature indicated
a direction desirable to follow, man floated on them in his
boats.
The simple trunk floating down a river furnished the oldest
means of travelling on water. The primitive method can still be
observed along the waterways in the interior of New Guinea.
When the vessel of the explorer, Fintsch, approached the island the
natives paddled round his ship, riding trunks and even the roots of
trees in a most skilful fashion. From the floating pieces of lumber,
then, the dug-out or monoxylon gradually developed. Its world-
wide distribution makes it a universal type of early transportation
on the waterways.
From Australia to the Pacific Islands, from the Sudan to the
arctic regions of Asia and Europe, the dug-out (whose hollow part
is often burnt out) is known to many primitive travellers of the world.
It was the only boat of the South American nomads before
Columbus ; they ventured out to sea in their monoxylas, which were
often as long as sixty feet. The Guato and the Payagua of the Chako
stake their dug-outs along the banks of rivers with long, lancet-
shaped oars, different in form from the short crook-handled paddles
ON THE ROADS OF LAND AND WATER
189
ROOT RAFTS
New Guinea
After K. Weule
of the tropical forest regions. The piragua of the upper Xingu
features a wooden plank or board.
In North America the Indians of the south-east coast of Alaska
distinguish their dug-outs by finer workmanship and decorate them
with fancy carvings. Krieger,
who stresses " the fondness of
the coast Indians for working
in wood/' which " becomes
almost an obsession with
them," describes their long
dug-out canoes (which are
hollowed from a single cedar
trunk) as " constructed with a
high ornamental prow and
stern, shaped from separate
slabs of cedar wood. Each
has carved representations of
mythical and realistic animal
forms as totemistic and ornamental embellishments. Some of these
boats were formerly fitted with sails of cedar-bark matting and
are from forty to sixty feet in length. They have no rudder, but
are steered with a stern paddle. Natives of Sitka, on Baranoff
Island, are known to have sailed as far as Port Simpson on the
Skeena, more than three hundred miles distant." These boats
have a capacity of fifty
passengers.
r
Some African dug-outs,
especially of the Cameroons,
are also richly decorated with
carved ornaments, while those
of the Sudan are more crude.
The East African fishermen of
Lake Tanganyika have their
individual dug-outs. If the chosen tree is too tall it is chopped
off ; if too short, its submerged trunk is dug from the soil.
When roots, branches, and bark are removed the trunk is hollowed
out with an axe and with the help of the iesso, the common tool.
Two thick, square boards are left in the trunk to serve as a foot-rest.
The White Fathers who furnish this description remark that often
crooked trees are worked into canoes and that some of the dug-outs
look as if " they could not go straight," although they do, of course.
They may serve for eight years or longer, and are trimmed with
good-luck charms. A ceremony of magic inaugurates the use of a
DUG-OUT CANOE
190
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
new dug-out. It includes an appeal to the ancestors and a series
of hearty epithets directed against all who should threaten the new
boat by their evil intentions, be they human beings or ghosts.
The dug-outs of northern Eurasia are probably an importation
and not a legacy of prehistoric times. The swamps of Finland and
northern Russia, otherwise so rich in cultural remnants of the
oldest periods, have not yielded a single specimen. In Estonia the
dug-out is still built by the vil-
lage population and known as
Lddnemaa. Middendorf observed
them on the lower currents of
the Siberian rivers which empty
into the Arctic Sea, and noted
that they were manufactured
" south of the Polar Circle from
whence they are transported to
the peoples of the North Lands/'
Perhaps of the same age as or
even older than the dug-outs are
the roughly constructed bark
boats. The Fuegian Yamana and
their neighbours (except the
Selk'nam) build them from three
pieces of bark, crudely sewn
together with whale barbels.
They are always navigated by a
woman, who holds a simple
paddle in both hands while her
husband hovers at the bow, holding his harpoon or spear in
readiness. The children are kept busy not only taking care of
the fire which burns in the middle of the boat, but with the
continuous bailing of water.
Some African tribes who build equally fragile bark boats, like the
Negroes of Central and Eastern Sudan, use another type of ancient
watercraft, the raft. These rafts are bundles of papyrus shafts
tied together, or piles of ambash (Herminiera elaphroxylori) wood ;
both types are familiar sights in the Upper Nile region. Their
South American equivalent is the balsa of Lake Titicaca. In India
rafts appear along the Coromandel coast, and they are a favourite
means of water transportation of the Californian tribes of North
America. The Kamia build them fifteen feet long, composed of
twelve to fourteen bundles of tule, and capable of carrying seven
persons. The Tubatulabal tule rafts are only about half that
BALSA BOAT
Lake Titicaca, Bolivia
ON THE ROADS OF LAND AND WATER
length, square on both ends, and without sides. They require two
men when used for spearing fish.
A curious variety of the raft is the corita or pitch-cemented woven
basket of the Lower Colorado which serves as a ferry. Equally
strange is the huge, round clay vessel of the natives of Assam which
carries its passengers safely over short distances.
Another very ancient method of water transportation employs
sewn animal skins, either filled with air or fitted over a structure
of bone or wood. Inflated animal
skins floated along the rivers of
Mesopotamia, Nubia, India, and
Babylon. The bull-boat of the
Prairie Indians was a round vessel
of buffalo hide, stretched over a
frame of elastic wood. It had the
appearance of an open, turned-
over umbrella. The South
American pelota of steer hide is
a comparatively recent importa-
tion, introduced by the Gauchos
among the Abipones and in the
Pampas.
The huge skin boat of northern RAFT OF INFLATED ANIMAL SKIN
Asia, with its sails woven from Northern India
entrails and its floaters of seal After K. Weule
hides, was, with variations, in wide
use throughout prehistoric Europe. It has its late counterparts
in the skin-covered vessels of the Lapps. The skin boats of the
Eskimos and other present-day arctic peoples are the kayaks and
umiaks. A kayak is usually occupied by a single hunter, although
the natives of southern Alaska and of the Aleutian Islands devise
two- or three-seated models. A frame of driftwood holds the
structure together. This is covered over with sewn sealskins, with
only one narrow, round opening for the occupant, who is protected
from water by clothing made of skins. A fixed tray and some
bands to hold his harpoon and harpoon-line in place, besides a
paddle of one or two blades, are about the only equipment the
hunter can take along in this extremely light and navigable craft.
The umiak is an open boat, also consisting of a large wooden frame
and covered with skin. It is younger than the kayak, and probably
originated in north-eastern Asia. In Greenland the umiak is
merely used for transport, not for the hunt, and is known as the
' women's boat/
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
A very efficient water-craft is the birch-bark canoe of the sub-
arctic hunters and related tribes (not to be confused with the rattling
bark vessels of the Fuegians, to which it is far superior). The
Indians tailor it from one piece of the bark of the Canadian canoe
or * paper ' birch (Betulapapyrifera). t Tailored ' is an appropriate
description, because only a very skilful and experienced cutter is
able to fashion such a craft without the aid of metal tools or the
white man's iron nails.
After a suitable tree has been chosen two deep circular incisions
near its crown and roots are made with the beaver-tooth axe,
followed by a straight vertical cut and the careful peeling off of the
bark. While the man is busy with this work his wife collects long
strands of spruce root from the ground. After removing the black
bark she splits the white roots into long, flexible strips which are
boiled and left in water in order to retain the flexibility necessary
for their use as ' sewing thread/ As soon as all materials have been
assembled the canoe builder prepares the * bed/ or building place,
of the canoe. The ground on this spot must be firm, solid, yet
slightly sandy. The bark, its weather side facing the soil, is laid
on this ' bed,' then is bent upward over a bottom frame of cedar-
wood. Another frame of two long, curved sticks encloses the bark
from the outside.
As soon as the inner frame has been firmly set a load of heavy
stones is heaped inside to stretch and weigh down the bark. The
overlapping parts are cut away, and the ' tailoring ' is finished.
The next phase of the work, the sewing together of the tailored
parts, is women's work. Holes are drilled with caribou bones at
regularly spaced intervals in the bark, and are run through with
stitches of spruce root. When all parts are thus sewn together with
neat, identical stitches the gunwale is built into the body of the
canoe, which is still, at this point, filled with stones. The shape
of the vessel is now secured, and the stones may be safely removed.
The next step is gluing the seams with a mixture of boiled spruce
resin. The women now withdraw. The men take over again, and
fit the entire inner body of the canoe with ingeniously cut ribs of
cedar wood, both crosswise and lengthwise, which give the canoe its
final and typical shape of a round-bottomed, smartly symmetrical
boat.
This canoe, together with the toboggan, is about the most
important possession of any Indian family. Many families possess
three or more of them to move from the big lakes of the summer
camps to the wilderness of the hunting grounds where the all-
important furs are sought. The canoe carries them back in the
ON THE ROADS OF LAND AND WATER
193
spring on the narrow streams, the ' streets ' of the wild woods of
the interior of Labrador.
BOW OF * TAILORED' BIRCH-BARK OUTRIGGER CANOE WITH SAIL
CANOE Madura Strait, Indonesia
Montagnais-Naskapi Indians After Pritchelt
Labrador
Collection Julius E. Lips
Only one who has seen the artistry, "the care, and perfect work-
manship applied in the manufacture of these vessels can imagine
' BOAT WITHOUT OUTRIGGER
Solomon Islands
After Hambruch
the beauty of such a boat. The slowly paddled birch-bark canoes
on the immense lakes of Canada are a proud sight.
About the most famous vessels built by primitive man are the
canoes of the South Seas with their special feature, the single or
double outrigger. They represent the highest technical achieve-
ment reached in primitive boat-building.
7
194
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
Although the mon canoes of the Solomon Islands are without
outriggers, the characteristic models of the other islands generally
possess the outrigger defined by Haddon as " a balancing apparatus
that extends traversely across the hull of the canoe." In the great
travelling boats of Polynesia the second outrigger is often
replaced by a second canoe attached to the first a form
which had its origin in Indonesia. The smaller, ' second '
boats often carry completely furnished little huts in which
coconuts, fishing tools, water in calabashes, arid hearths
with burning fires are kept for the comfort of the travel-
lers. The larger boats are equipped with sails of mats
woven from pandanus leaves swallow-tailed in shape in
South-east New Guinea and the Santa Cruz Islands,
triangular in Micronesia and Polynesia, square or elliptic
in Melanesia, the last type sometimes being attached to
single or double masts. Large stones or stone-filled baskets
serve as anchors ; rudders hang in a sling on the stern.
The natives of these islands have developed a consider-
able skill at navigation, and have regular nautical maps
which they use to determine the direction of their travels.
Thoroughly familiar with the currents and tides and,
especially, with the location of the stars, they steer safely
through the sea. Regular navigation schools exist on the
Caroline Islands of Mogemog, Uleai, Poluat, and on
Jaluit and Arno of the Marshalls. The Polar Star marks
the north, the Southern Cross the south, and the east-west
direction is determined by a multitude of other known
and named stars, as Hambruch has shown in his studies
on South Sea navigation.
On land and sea primitive man has thus found ways to
travel and to move about, making free use of all the facili-
Museum of ties provided by nature. We consider ourselves masters
Ethnology, ' ^ roac [ s an ^ o f the rivers and oceans when we board
oogne j our twentieth-century giants of transportation, but we
must also consider that, unlike the man in the wilderness who
builds and directs his vehicles, we are not individually masters
of the ability to transport ourselves and our possessions.
Only since the beginnings of the air age have the ancient roads
of land and water lost their significance to any considerable degree.
Flying through the skies, we have found the miraculous magic
carpet about which the travellers of the jungle could only dream.
PADDLE
Solomon
Islands
CHAPTER EIGHT
Wall Street in the Jungle
IN TIMES OF FINANCIAL CRISES, whether runaway inflation or
deflation, we tend to lose faith in that magic medium known as
money. At such times we harassed victims of civilization occa-
sionally like to think about some remote, exotic island with its
CONGO MONEY, LINED UP DURING TRADE NEGOTIATIONS
American Museum of Natural History y New York
idyllic and simpler form of society as the ideal haven of economic
security, unaware of the fact that the unsophisticated children of
nature have worries not unlike our own. Fundamentally the
difference between a dollar bill and, for instance, a cowrie shell is
merely one of appearance. The man on Broadway who pays a bill
by cheque is doing neither more nor less than an Indian of the
Hupa tribe who fumbles in his leather pouch and produces the head
195
196
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
RED WOODPECKER S HEAD
'COIN* AND ELK-HORN
' PURSE '
Hupa Indians
Museum of Ethnology, Berlin
of a red woodpecker in payment. The shape of coins may be
different all over the world, but the worries that go with them are
the same.
The most widely distributed money of primitive peoples comes
from snails and shells. The thick-
edged porcelain shell of the cowrie
snail has been used as a medium of
exchange for centuries in the remote
regions of the globe. The snails are
caught by the simple device of throwing
cocoa leaves into the water and collect-
ing them after the mollusca have settled
on them. Merchants of all nationalities
deal in this primitive coin a trade
which extends to China, Japan, and the
East Indies. Its main places of origin
are the Maldivian Islands, south-west
of India proper, and the East African
island of Mafia. The thirteenth-
century traveller, Marco Polo, noted
ftie use of cowrie coins in the Chinese
province of Toloman. " These were
porcelain snails," he wrote, " such as were formerly used on dog
collars. "
In time, the high cultures chose other mediums of exchange.
China replaced its cowries with silver and copper ; Tibet with
silver. In Africa, however, the use of the cowrie-shell money is
still common, its value increasing with
the distance of the tribal land from the
coast. In the interior everything is
paid for in cowrie. Even the white
missionaries collect contributions in
it. Among the Buboka, an axe costs
one hundred and fifty cowries, a
piece of Indian cotton has a value of six hundred cowries, and to
buy two cakes of European soap or a package of dried grasshoppers
you need one hundred cowries. The price of a bride among the
Bassari is fifteen thousand cowrie shells plus one cow an expensive
luxury for any prospective bridegroom. A fetish, artistically
modelled from clay, brings three hundred cowries, the equivalent of
about five cents. Relics and grave-stones, taxes and fines, are all
paid for in cowries, and one can become bankrupt in terms of
cowrie as easily as in dollars or pounds.
COWRIE SHELLS
WALL STREET IN THE JUNGLE 197
Another snail, Dentalium edulis, was used by the old Indians
between Alaska and Puget Sound. It was dug by the women from
the banks of the Vancouver River and valued on account of its
brilliant white colour and its symmetrical shape, resembling a
miniature elephant's tusk. The South Sea Islanders hardly ever
deal in cowrie or dentalium. Not satisfied with mere shells pro-
duced by nature, they fashion the shells into ' money/ which,
threaded on strings, is handled with all the respect due to the
authorized product of their * mints/
By far the most prominent Melanesian currency is the famous
nassa money, also known as diwarra, or tambu. It needs special
craftsmanship for its preparation. Its manufacture is a privilege of
chieftains ; no woman may take part in it. Diwarra is made from
a half-inch sea snail with a camePs-hump-shaped shell, known to
zoologists as Nassa camelus. The natives along the coast of
Nakanai, where the shell is found, collect the precious snails with
nets from the bottom of the sea and store them in their huts,
regardless of the offensive odour caused by the decay of the animal
matter.
As soon as the south-western monsoon season is over many
expeditions in outrigger boats set out -from the Gazelle Peninsula,
from the Bay of Talili, and from neighbouring islands, to catch the
palatambu, as the natives call the unprepared shell. This entire
enterprise is accompanied by ceremonial splendour, because
diwarra, or tambu y is caught and prepared with religious devotion.
The first wish welcoming a new-born boy is : " May you become
a great and strong man, so that you may travel to Nakanai many
times to get plenty of tambu" This trip takes about a month.
For all natives of this region tambu is their most cherished pro-
perty, more valuable than life and health. Tambu is * great and
holy/ as its name indicates. Its possession even buys immortality,
because only the wealthy after death go to Nakanai, the holy tambu
land.
To cut the tambu out of the raw shell the natives press it into
the hole of a coconut and cut off its * camel's hump/ with the sharp
edge of a shell tool. After the hole has been punched the shell is
thoroughly cleaned. To give it the desired white appearance, it is
submitted to an intricate bleaching process. Finally the tambu
is strung, first on strips of bark to remove the last yellow hues
discolouring some of the shells, and later on liana tendrils.
No one would dream of keeping more * cash ' in his hut than
absolutely necessary. The rest of an individual's fortune is kept
in the People's Bank or community tambu house, hidden in the
198 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
bush and protected by constant watch. The money strings are
tied together in rings often as large as a wagon wheel, wrapped in
pandanus leaves, and bound all round with rotang cord. One such
ring may contain five hundred fathoms of diwarra. It has the
appearance of a heavy tyre.
Not unlike the money-worshippers of the civilized world who
SHELL MONEY
' Bakiau ' and ' Sapisapi '
South-east New Guinea
DRILL FOR THE MANU-
TAMBU (DIWARRA) SHELL MONEY FACTURE OF SHELL DISKS
Gazelle Peninsula New Guinea
After H. Petri
love to count and re-count their bank balances, the natives sit in
their huts, measuring their tambu strings and experiencing all the
genuine joys of wealth before they entrust their fortune to the bank.
So important is the role diwarra plays among these islanders that
there is hardly any function of their daily lives in which it is not
needed. Everything can be bought or sold in diwarra even
children, whose price is about equal to that of a bride : ten to fifty
strings. Wives are constantly urged to work to enable their
husbands to cash in as much diwarra as possible, thereby increasing
the husband's power and influence.
In times of war the precious tambu strings are buried. The
great tycoon who owns the largest amount of money strings is called
WALL STREET IN THE JUNGLE 199
a luluai or patium, meaning ' chieftain ' or ' big boss.' Those who
have but little tambu are luweans, or ' poor devils.'
Even immaterial values can be measured in diwarra. There is
no wrong which cannot be repaired by a diwarra payment. For
adultery, three to five strings are sufficient ; murder requires about
fifty strings ; theft, twenty. Even the greatest, almost irreparable
crime the theft of diwarra can be atoned for with a set payment.
Secret societies occasionally misuse the religious conceptions of the
natives for the sake of the beloved diwarra^ mulcting some naive
soul of it under the guise of mystical representations. In time of
war the chieftain who wishes to engage the service of allies has to
pay generously in diwarra. This emphasis on money is unequalled
in the civilized world.
Another type of shell money is obtained by making thousands of
individual shell disks which are tied together and strung, often to
a length of many yards. The Indians of California used this kind
of money to purchase brides or to pay for adoptions, funerals,
games, and even peace agreements. Like the South Sea Islanders,
the Indians measure all such strings by measurements of the human
body, from finger-tip to elbow, from papilla to papilla, from shoulder
to shoulder, etc. The American wampum was made of disks from
white and purple quahaug shells. Woven into belts, it also served
as a legal document for the conclusion of treaties.
In contrast to the * holy ' diwarra money, shell disks are manu-
factured mainly by women. Not the material, but the artificially
* coined ' shape give these disks their monetary value. Famous
* mints ' are located on the Solomon Islands, on islands of the
Bougainville Straits, on the Banks Islands, and elsewhere. Many
tribes of the Gazelle Peninsula, where such strings are termed pele,
trade them for nassa shells. Along the Buin Coast of Bougainville
ten to twenty fathoms of shell- disk money buy, according to
Thurdwald, a pig or a widow ; murder costs one hundred to one
hundred and twenty fathoms ; and a young girl may have a
value of up to a hundred and fifty fathoms.
The disks may be white, black, purple, or red, the latter especially
on Ponape. Great shells are broken into smaller sections which
are pressed into a wooden board and polished with a stone on both
sidles. After their perforation with a primitive drill the disks are
strung on hibiscus fibres, and their rims are carefully filed down
with pumice stone to make them of standard circumferences.
On Truk and Mortlock the tiny disks are occasionally fashioned
from fruit shells. The Mariana Islanders make money strings of
thin tortoise-shell disks.
2OO
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
SECTION OF PIG-
MONEY' STRING
New Ireland
Museum of
Ethnology, Cologne
That shell-disk money belongs to the oldest mediums of exchange
is evidenced by findings in prehistoric graves in which whole
' fortunes,' buried with the deceased, have been
discovered.
A combination of shell disks and other
objects regarded as valuable by the natives
is the so-called * pig-money/ frequently used
on New Ireland. It consists of up to twenty
thousand individual disks, strung together with
glass beads, woven intermediate pieces of rotang
strips, and dog teeth. Its lower end is always
decorated with one or more pigtails. This
money is used for the purchase of pigs and of
women, but for the latter, two strings of dog
teeth have to be added.
One such piece of nearly thirteen yards'
length consisted, according to Petri, of a long
string of black and white shell disks with larger
fruit-shell disks at regular intervals. This was
followed by a woven square of orange and black
dyed rotang strips, its corners trimmed with
shell disks and pigtails. The rest of the money
string was made up of a long section of white shell disks, two
parallel strings of shell disks horizontally arranged, another string
of white and orange shell disks with coco-
nut pearls, four dog fangs, a further long
string of white disks, and eight white shell
strings in parallel rows. A mother-of-
pearl shell and three pigtails dangled
from its lower end.
Other varieties of shell money are the
valuable arm rings, fashioned in Micro-
nesia mainly from the Conns millepunc-
tatus shell and in Melanesia from Tridacna
gigas. Petri describes their purchasing
value as twenty tridacna rings for a hut
or a canoe. The natives of Tumleo buy
a quantity of sago or a large yellow bird
of paradise with one ring ; two such rings
pay for a watch-dog, ten for a pig. The most valuable specimens
are the yellow-spotted shell rings. They are cut from the large
shells with a saw-like tool which consists of a wooden bow strung
with a piece of bast. On the western and central Caroline Islands,
MOTHER-OF-PEARL
MONEY JAR
Island Yap
After K. Weule
WALL STREET IN THE JUNGLE
2O I
BOAR S FANG MONEY
New Guinea
After K. Weule
especially on Ponape, these rings are fashioned from the conus
shell. Similar pieces were used in prehistoric times.
Mother-of-pearl shells are another widespread * coin/ especially
in the Caroline Islands, where they are known by the name of jar.
They are cut in the shape of a spade,
punched, and tied to a cocoa string. On
the island of Yap only women are allowed
to use jar as currency. Consequently the
natives term it * women 's money.' The
men of Yap deal in a completely different
1 coin ' which belongs to another type of
currency stone money.
The famous coins of Yap, called fei,
are gigantic wheels of aragonite, a sort of
limestone found on the islands of Pelew.
To collect these stones the men of Yap have to make a trip of several
hundred miles. Just as in the case of the diwarra, this type of
currency does not serve as money in the territory where it is found,
but is used by tribes living far away. With great difficulty the
aragonite is cut from the rock without the help of any metal tools,
and transported to Yap on rafts towed by
canoes.
This money is of enormous size, round
and flat, with a drilled hole in the middle,
somewhat like a millstone only much
thinner. Its value increases in propor-
tion to its size and its thinness. Fei may
be up to five yards in diameter, and
probably constitutes the largest coin in
the world. Its value is measured by the
spread of the hand. In the year 1900 a
fei measuring three spans in diameter
bought a bag of copra or about ten
dollars' worth of merchandise. A large-
sized fei is worth a woman, a canoe, a
pig, and a great variety and quantity of
fruit.
Naturally, the unusual size of this currency causes considerable
difficulties in everyday trading. For this reason the fei money is
lined up in front of a man's home. Selling goods to another man
living far away, the merchant merely inspects the appearance and
position of his customer's fei. He does not take actual possession
of each stone wheel, and may own feis spread all over the island.
MONEY RING OF THE
YELLOW-SPOTTED
TRIDACNA GIGAS SHELL
Solomon Islands
After H. Petri
202
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
\> \v\
When a native of Yap has to pay taxes or fines the white admini-
strators simply mark some of his feis with the initials of the district
officer. If the coin happens to change hands again the initials are
erased. Neolithic findings in China and Indo-China show that
this currency is also of very ancient origin.
Marble rings are used as money on the island of Isabel and on
the New Hebrides. Native head-hunters value them as the
equivalent of one human head, a ' very good ' pig, or a rpedium-
sized young man. In the southern
regions of New Guinea the blades
of ceremonial hatchets fashioned
from volcanic stone are a recog-
nized currency. From the ' mint '
on Murua they are traded west-
ward to the Papua Gulf. Pigs, food,
canoes, and land are paid for with
this money, and they are the witch
doctor's fee for successful * magical '
services.
The most valuable stone currency
in white men's eyes is, of course,
such * coins ' as consist of precious
or semi-precious stones. On ac-
count of their scarcity, such stones
pass more often as valuables than as
everyday currency , although they
are used as money in many places.
In ancient China the jadeite was used as a coin. To-day the
natives of Borneo use agate as money. So do the natives of
Uchichi, who add jasper to their currency. The Caribbeans
bought slaves with nephrite ; and in Kordofan, Darfur, and India
pearls even to-day are legal coins.
In 1624 the explorer Braun spoke of * mystical aggri' pearls'
which he encountered in the highlands of * Ambosy ' (Cameroons).
The natives called them abug, and would sell even human beings
for two or three handfuls of them. According to a native legend,
these aggri pearls were mined in the land of Bonyse, but the mine
shaft caved in. This explains their great value. Only the chief-
tains and their wives were allowed to possess aggri money.
Glass beads have been carried all over the globe by explorers and
traders to buy native goods. In some places these beads are so
firmly established as coinage that price fluctuations take place
according to fashion trends and changes of taste. Behold the
FBI MONEY STONE
Island Yap
WALL STREET IN THE JUNGLE 203
South American Indian who invested his whole fortune in old-
fashioned blue beads instead of in the modern red ones ! His
former fortune is just as worthless as some stock shares were during
the depression of the 1930*3.
In Africa the use of beads for money is so widespread and so
subject to changing trends that numerous attempts have been
made to ' stabilize ' certain varieties. Yet these attempts have
encountered unsurpassable difficulties, in view of the continuous
imports of tempting novelties. King Soona of Uganda attempted
to emancipate himself from European imports by planting beads in
the hope of getting a large crop, but sadly enough his attempts came
to naught. Along the Croo coast glass-bead money is in circulation
which, according to the natives, was mined by their ancestors in
the bush and which they thought * grew ' in the soil.
On the Pelews the islanders cherish a ' holy ' earth and mineral
money called audouth. Since it is very scarce they hoard it care-
fully. Sixty years ago its best specimens were valued by white
traders at about four thousand dollars a piece, which explains the
fact that these coins are never in circulation and are seldom shown
to anybody. Petri states that this money has executed " a decisive
influence upon the entire tribal life "*of the natives.
A more important medium of exchange is the tooth coin. It
usually consists of rare animal teeth. Many of these coins are
teeth artificially retarded in their growth. The tusk of the wild
boar is a strange coin of this type. To attain its highest value, it
must be grown in a ring-like shape. To produce this ' ideal ' form,
the upper tusks of young boars are pulled out. This causes the
lower ones to grow with their points turning downward, and within
a few years the desired circle is attained. This money is especially
appreciated by the Papua, who wear the rings on their arms.
Much wider is the area of distribution of dog-tooth money,
which is found not only on New Guinea, but also in the Bismarck
Archipelago and on the Solomons. Only the four fangs of a dog
are used for money. Arranged in three parallel strings, dog fangs
pay for a pig, for food, and for pottery. A woman or a young man
has a value of a hundred dog teeth. On New Guinea this money
is an important means of intertribal commerce. Schmidt reports
that the Nor-Papuans manufacture bracelets which they exchange
for tobacco at Dallmann Harbour. They then trade these goods in
Kis for dog teeth. In Vatam they buy with them the valuable red
earth, which they exchange in Vaskulin for sago and pouches.
These goods, in turn, are exchanged for pottery, and finally for
large dog-tooth chains.
204
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
ROLL OF FEATHER MONEY
(Above) SINGLE FEATHER COIN
Santa Cruz
Museum of Ethnology, Cologne
Kangaroo and opossum teeth are other ' coins ' of the New
Guineans, while North Bougainville and other places favour reki,
or bat teeth, and batu, the teeth of
the dolphin. Dolphin teeth are
also in circulation at San Cristo-
bal and at Malanta. The Banks
Islanders prefer boar money, and
the Fiji and Gilbert tribes manu-
facture coins from the teeth of the
sperm whale. A good example of
the relative value of tooth money
has been reported by a European
explorer to whom the African
tribe of the Hausa offered a ton of
ivory for some cotton cloth worth
less than fifty cents.
* Zoological ' money is, however, by no means limited to tooth
money. Feather money is extensively used. The natives of Santa
Cruz use small pieces of it, consisting of a woven
band, as ' small change/ Substantial wealth is
expressed by the possession of large rolls of
feathers arranged in shingle-like fashion. Such
a roll may contain two thousand individual
feather ' shingles/ Its value is, according to
Speiser, that of two big pigs or a girl.
The rolls are carefully kept in tapa wrappings,
hung up over the fireplace to protect them against
insects, and are proudly displayed to any visitor.
Handed down through generations, these rolls
lose their value when the red feathers they con-
tain are worn out. Wealthy people erect their
own ' bank vaults ' in the bush for the safe-
keeping of their treasures, and occasionally the
fortune of the tribe is displayed publicly on
bamboo posts. Hundreds of birds must be
killed to furnish enough feathers for these rolls,
hence their high value. Pigeons and humming-
birds contribute their feathers to this money, as Ethnology, Cologne
well as chickens, but in the latter case only the
fine feathers that grow round their eyes are chosen. The fabrica-
tion of this money is women's work. On the Banks Islands small
red feathers are tied together in bundles or woven into necklaces ;
sometimes white feathers are added to set off the red ones more
FEATHER-MONEY
NECKLACE
Banks Islands
Museum of
WALL STREET IN THE JUNGLE
205
effectively. On Santa Cruz this money is occasionally woven into
belts.
In Polynesia feather money and feather jewellery have reached
their greatest perfection. Cook found,
in 1777, that yellow and red parrot
feathers were valuable coins. Images
of the gods are trimmed with feathers
by these islanders, and their famous
chieftains' coats, containing thousands of
artfully interwoven feathers, are among
the most treasured possessions of many a
white man's museum.
On the Willaumez and French Islands
the feathers and thigh-bones of the casso-
wary are used as money. The high
esteem for this type of currency is due
to the fact that the cassowary does not
live on these islands.
North Assam knows * skull money '
derived from butchered cows, and the
head - hunters of Borneo used human
skulls as a medium of wealth.
Among the strangest yet most widely
distributed moneys on earth is the edible
* coin/ Of course the tribes who use it make sure that
coins consist of products which are practically imperishable.
Salt is a recognized currency in most parts of Africa, often in the
form of loaves or bricks of stone salt. To it the Pangwe add
kank y a roll of boiled cassava mush. No
health department stops the natives of
Nias from circulating dried pork as cur-
rency. In ancient Mexico the smallest
currency consisted of cocoa beans, which
even to-day circulate as money in re-
mote places. Brick tea ' money ' enjoys
an unusually extensive circulation in many
Chinese provinces. It is made of tea-
leaves, pressed into loaves the size of a brick.
Units of rice are often used as small coin, especially on Sumatra
and by the Igorot. Salaries and taxes even to-day are paid in rice
in many Asiatic regions. In the East Indies tapioca coins were
known. On the Nicobar Islands pairs of small nuts are currency ;
Tibet prefers walnuts. Other vegetal currencies are dried banana
BRICK-TEA MONEY
STAMPED WITH THE
SIGN *MU'
Central Asia
After K. Weule
such
STONE-SALT MONEY
Abyssinia
After K. Weule
206 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
peels and pieces of curcuma root, found on the Caroline Islands.
Lapland uses even nowadays its ancient cheese money.
Stimulants also are used as currency. Nias and Eastern Siberian
natives use tobacco leaves in this way. In West Africa white
merchants pay with trade tobacco, one tobacco leaf being the
smallest ' change/ Albert Schweitzer reports from Lambarene
that one tobacco leaf pays for two pineapples and that all smaller
services are paid for in tobacco leaves. Seven of them make a * head
of tobacco,' worth seven French francs. Some of Schweitzer's
instructions to travellers in Africa are :
If you want to buy food, don't take money along, but tobacco.
If you want to avoid robberies, sit down on the precious box
during the boat trips. On the water, the pipe goes from mouth
to mouth. If you want to travel comfortably, promise each hand
on deck two leaves of tobacco, and you will reach your destination
one or two hours earlier than anybody else who offers white man's
money.
More dangerous is a currency circulating in a Chinese province
of Hainan opium. Equally dangerous is the use of brandy money
along the Loango coast, where it is passed in glasses or bottles as
small or larger payment. During the rainy season an egg costs
half a glass of rum, while the price is raised to a full glass during
the dry season. A goat costs three bottles of rum and a piece of
cotton cloth. The Ainu tribesmen pay with rice brandy which
they receive from Japan. This alcoholic money is very dangerous,
as it is likely to tempt its owner to become intoxicated with his
wealth in the truest sense of the word.
With the development of the rubber trade many primitive tribes
acknowledged rubber balls as means of exchange. In Togo they
occasionally replaced even the traditional cowrie coins.
Closest to the white man's conception of money are the metal
currencies which are used in addition to the other varieties,
particularly in Africa. Especially in places where different cultures
came into contact with each other, a variety of currency has been
the rule. These metal moneys do not have the shape of coins in
our sense, but appear often in the form of tools and weapons.
The region of Tabora in East Africa is known to the natives as
Unyanyembe (Land of the Hoe), so called after the one hundred and
fifty thousand iron hoes (yembe) delivered there sixty years ago by
the natives of Ussindja and used as monetary units. Spears, knives,
and white man's guns have been added as currency. In 1906 the
Pangwe established stabilized prices for all major objects of their
WALL STREET IN THE JUNGLE 207
trade, but although they adopted iron-spear money as their standard
currency, other coinages were equally recognized, due to the infusion
of various cultural and economic elements from other forms of
civilization. This makes it possible to translate native values into
equivalent amounts of English money.
A Pangwe bridegroom in quest of marital happiness, for instance,
must make the following payments for his bride :
s. d.
6000 spears 20 o o
12 guns 600
2 barrels of powder 4 o
70 boar tusks 300
2 sheep 2 10 o
2 iron pots 10 o
10 pieces of cloth 200
5 hats 12 6
13 pots of salt i o o
2 knives 2 o
2 packages of beads 2 o
2 tobacco pipes i o
2 packages of flint i o
i hat full of buttons * i o
Total 36 3 6
As we can see, the price for a Pangwe bride is a considerable
amount, which often condemns many young Pangwe men to life-
long bachelorhood.
For their metal money the African natives never depended on
imports from Europe, since the process of producing iron by
melting it in furnaces was known to them long before the white
man had acquired that knowledge.
The favourite shape of iron money in the form of familiar tools
often leads to their reproduction in miniature. The old iron money
of the Pangwe, for instance, has the form of diminutive axes, tied
together with fibre strings in fan-like fashion. Ten such bundles
are worth about a quarter of a dollar. This money, however, is
now scarce. Present-day Pangwe currency is made from spear-
points whose value depends on size and workmanship. An
ordinary iron spear is worth about two cents. Unusually large spears
are worth about twenty-five cents. They are particularly used for
the purchase of women. An elephant tusk costs about two hundred
spears ; a rhinoceros bird, ten spears ; a large rat, ten spears ; a
pipe, only one spear ; a soup ladle, two spears ; a European gun,
208
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
one hundred to two hundred spears ;
and the moustache of a leopard, ten
spears.
The East African Usandaui also use
spear money, while the tribes of the
Western Bantu prefer axes and spear-
points, and the Basongo, throwing
knives. The African Pygmies barter
with neighbouring tribes for iron-knife
and spear-point money. They use the
so-called * silent bartering/ a procedure
in which both the prospective buyer
and the seller deposit their wares at an
appointed spot without ever meeting
each other in person.
A curious money circulates along the
upper Binus. It consists of nails and
pins. In contrast, the Porno Indians
of California preferred neatly polished
cones of dolomite or magnesite.
> One particular European coin has
become very
popular with
the natives of
Africa. It is
the 'Maria
Theresa
taler,' an an-
cient three-
mark piece
which en-
tered the
Dark Continent via the Near East and
the Sudan, penetrating all North Africa
and Western Arabia, even passing the
Equator. This taler became tremen-
dously popular with the natives, who
adore the portly bust-line of the Austrian
Empress whose image adorns one side
of the coin. Slenderness as a mark
of beauty is unknown to the natives of SPEAR-POINT MONEY
Africa. Fang, West Africa
Other foreign coins which have con- After G. Tessmann
IRON MONEY COPPER
Northern COIN
Congo Congo
Museum of Ethnology, Cologne
WALL STREET IN THE JUNGLE
209
quered primitive regions are the Mexican silver dollar, a recognized
currency all over the Far East, and the Indian rupee, current in
Tibet and East Africa. In some
parts of Abyssinia cartridge
shells have been accepted as
currency, and peaceful com-
mercial transactions are settled
with these reminders of wars
gone by.
Copper bars in the shape of
St Andrew's crosses were a
valuable Congo currency.
Heavy semicircles of copper are
money at Stanley Pool. Beauti-
fully ornamented, such half
rings are known in many parts
of West Africa. These manillas,
as they were called, were a
recognized currency, especially
in the kingdom of Benin, as
their frequent appearance on
the famed bronze plates of
the sixteenth and seventeenth
MERCHANT WITH MONEY RING
('MANILLA')
Bronze Plate of the Sixteenth
Century
Benin, West Africa
Museum of Ethnology, Stuttgart
centuries proves.
In ancient China metal money
was used in many varied shapes
and materials. The oldest
Chinese metal currency had
the form of a very thin bronze
spade, with a hollow centre and
a four-sided handle. Bronze
bells and other finely cast currencies were manufactured in China
as early as 300 B.C. The ' sounding ' coins or K'iow ts'ien are
famous for their half-moon shape, their excellent workmanship,
and delicate ornamentation. They were known by the names of
' moon ' or ' bridge ' money. Even the Chinese word for money,
ts'ten, which means ' hoe,' is a reminder of the original shape of
the oldest Chinese currency.
In south-eastern Asia gongs were used as currency. They
served for the purchase of wives and for the payment of fines, but
were also used to build up considerable fortunes. Many tribes of
western India use metal drums instead. On the island of Celebes
brass rings are the native money, while the African Bantu use iron
210
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
beads ; the Basongo, copper and alloy ornaments ; and the North
American Haida, ornamented copper plates. These * coppers '
ANCIENT CHINESE BRONZE MONEY
Spade Coin
Bridge or Moon Coin,
K'iow ts'ien
After O. Munsterberg
Bell Coins
were cherished with religious ardour, as is the diwarra of the
South Seas.
,,The king of all metals, however, has
always been gold, and no country on
earth has ever resisted its lure. Gold
coins as we know them are nowhere
manufactured by primitive tribes, although
gold bars and gold-dust have been re-
cognized by many peoples as valuable
mediums of payment. But even the
evaluation of gold varies. There are
places on earth where silver is preferred
for everyday purchases, while gold is
given preference in the selling and buy-
ing of precious and beautiful objects. On
the African Gold Coast and among the
Ashanti, gold-dust was used as money
and was weighed with the aid of the
ENGRAVED * COPPER ' famed artistic gold weights of the Ashanti :
Ceremonial Haida Money tiny, bizarre figures of animals and tools
Museum of Ethnology, of daily life. Gold-dust money circulated
Berlin in China and in Indo-China and, above
all, in that most alluring of all gold
countries, ancient Mexico.
Modern civilizations have discarded gold bars as means of ex-
WALL STREET IN THE JUNGLE 211
change between seller and buyer, and have coined them into pieces
instead. This, at least, was so until nations were forced to abandon
their gold standards altogether. But wherever a genuine gold coin
shows up, be it in our modern cities or in the desert of Africa, eager
eyes recognize its value.
To those who wonder what has happened to the former American
and European gold coins the author is able to report that he per-
sonally discovered one of their caches in an oasis of the Western
Sahara, where little dancing girls of the Ouled Nail tribe perform
their tricks for the pleasure-seeking nomads of the desert. In their
tiny houses, built of dried mud, these girls strum their guitars, and
whenever they raise their arms, the wide sleeves of silk glide back
to expose scores of bracelets made of the gold coins of all civilized
nations, coins collected from their friends and customers.
Just as civilized nations authorize the state alone to manufacture
money in its mints, most primitive tribes allow only one man or one
selected group of men or women to manufacture their currency.
For this role, many tribes in Africa choose their blacksmith, which
helps to explain why he is the most respected member of the
tribe, ranking immediately after royalty. At Korintji on Sumatra
the privilege of coining copper and bra'fes-ring money is vested in
two men especially appointed for the purpose. They have the
honorary titles of Pagawei Djanang and Pagawei Radja, distinctions
which they pass on to their sons by inheritance.
* Paper money ' as an addition to coin money is as well known to
many primitive tribes as it is common in our form of civilization.
While modern coined money has its origin in primitive iron tools
and raw metal bars, paper money can be traced back to cloth money
and to the mats and hides which circulate as mediums of exchange
among many races. Fine hand- woven mats are money on Samoa
and in south-east Melanesia. The Yap variety is cruder. It is
rolled together and tied to cylinders with fibre strings.
The north-west American Indians traded with blankets, which
represented a considerable purchasing power. In Siberia the
natives paid their taxes in hides ; many North American Indians
used beaver-skins for money ; and the southern tribes traded in
raccoon hides. Other skins were used in north-western America, the
Tlinkits using moose hides. Wherever this kind of money is in
use, cloth money of many varied kinds may also be found to serve
the same purpose.
The whole tradition-sanctioned trading ceremony annually per-
formed by the Indians of Labrador, who bring their winter fur
harvest to the white traders of the Hudson's Bay Company in order
212 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
to buy supplies for the coming winter, can be regarded as an
example of the use of * hide money/ Until recently, the valuable
fur bundles of these Indians were estimated in terms of * made
beaver ' (M.Br.), a remnant from the times of the * beaver coin '
issued by the Company for their Indian trade and representing the
value of one prime beaver-skin.
In the Sudan and in Upper Guinea cotton money is in constant
circulation. Tibet favours the chadak, a silk material used ex-
clusively for making payments. In ancient Japan poets were paid
with cloth ; the same custom is known to all readers of the tales of
The Arabian Nights. As in the case of the glass beads, this money
also is often subject to threatening ups and downs caused by
changing fashion fads as, for instance, in northern Senegambia,
where the Moors recognize as money only a distinct type of navy-
blue Indian cotton cloth which they are able to distinguish from
any imitation by its smell.
Another development in the direction of the invention of paper
money is the official stamping of money mats by white adminis-
trators, as is done by the Portuguese in Angola, who then recognize
such stamped mats as legal currency and accept them for payment
of taxes.
From this fibre money it is but a small step to the * real ' paper
money which is the Western World's most common medium of
payment. As far back as the thirteenth century Marco Polo
reported the use of paper money by the Great Khan. It consisted
of the fibres of the mulberry-tree.
All this paper is manufactured with great lavishness and publicity,
as if it were melted silver and pure gold because on each piece the
body of officials, especially appointed for this purpose, not only sign
their names, but also affix their seals. When this has been done
in regular order the highest mint master whom His Majesty com-
missions for this purpose dips the seal entrusted to him in vermilion
and stamps therewith the piece of paper. In that manner it receives
full sanction as a valid coin, and should any one imitate it he would
be punished as a major criminal.
Odd coins shaped from leather were used in China during the
Han period, but they gave place to the so-called ' token ' money.
Token money is similar to the chips used by gamblers to represent
money as long as the game is on. China had, and still has to-day,
such token moneys of clay, porcelain, or lacquer. During modern
Chinese funerals ' the money of the deceased ' is symbolically
burned the ghosts who demand this are successfully fooled by
scraps of paper replacing genuine bills. In South America
WALL STREET IN THE JUNGLE 213
European bus companies used to issue tickets made of gutta-percha
which the natives accepted and treated as money.
Almost every ancient type of currency is surrounded by countless
myths that tie it up with the gods, the dead ancestors, and the
spirits and ghosts living in all objects of nature. These beliefs tend
to increase the value of money and stop robbers and forgers. The
* civilized * criminal who holds up a bank is threatened merely with
imprisonment ; the primitive robber of money, however, is doomed
and exposed to the wrath of the gods, a punishment of eternity
which makes this type of crime almost non-existent among most
tribes.
The natives of the Papao Islands, like many other primitives,
consider their currency of heavenly origin, created by mystical birds
and fishes and hidden by them along the beaches of mysterious
islands. When this money changes hands a surtax is added so as
to appease * the feelings of the coin/
In Mecca, the centre of Islam, most women carry a cherished
holy charm made of ancient Venetian gold coins showing the image
of Christ and of San Marco. In Tibet, Indian rupee coins are
used in the same way, but their religious value is due to a pious error,
for the image of Queen Victoria is takeh for the head of the Dalai
Lama.
The copper plates of the American north-west coast were in-
dividually named. They were kept in their * own house ' and even
received daily food. Women were strictly forbidden to enter such
a house. The ' coppers ' themselves supposedly came from the
man in the moon as a present for his fellow-tribesmen ; others
believed that they were brought by a mighty chieftain whose magic
castle was in the sea.
This religious veneration of money differs considerably from our
own cult of the god Mammon, for it reaches much deeper into the
soul of primitive men than the modern desire to grasp as great an
amount as possible of the indispensable dollar.
All over the world there are careful savers as well as spendthrifts.
Just as in our own case, the Melanesian Islander is at liberty either
to squander his riches or to deposit them carefully in his savings
bank, built in the centre of the village for the safekeeping of money
with an official watching the precious shell strings. People part
with their diwarra with the same feeling of reluctance and regret
that we have when we part with our shillings. The effect is the
same all over the world, whether the Salaga customer keeps twenty
thousand cowries in his fibre purse as small change, or the Pangwe
carries his iron money in string bags on his arms, or the Abyssinian
214 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
takes his cartridge shells from a European cartridge bag. And it is
as easy to lose in gambling when, among the African Bassaris,
the cowrie falls wrong side up, as it is in Monte Carlo when the
croupier's rake pulls in one's stake.
Even the dead in their graves are not safe from their creditors.
The relatives of a deceased Ewe tribesman cover his body with
cowries so that all rightful creditors may collect their share. Taxes
are a nuisance everywhere, no matter whether they a^e paid in
dollars or in shell money, in mats or in edibles. In Bornu every
male citizen has to pay one thousand shells for taxes, each pack
ox is taxed with an additional thousand shells as * sales tax,' and for
each slave there exists a * luxury tax J of two thousand shells.
But each region has its own financial tycoon. The African king
of Nassakama sold his land to the African Company, Ltd, for a
yearly pension of three hundred thousand cowries.
Exchange speculators are the cleverest wizards of all, and many
of them show their skill in primitive societies. A native of the
Ashanti tribe was astute enough to trade in all his cowrie money
in the year 1860 at the rate of one dollar for eighty-five strings.
He waited thirty-six years, until the exchange rate had risen to
two hundred and sixteen Strings for one dollar, to buy himself a
new fortune of cowries and become the wealthiest man of his people.
Hashash, an iron coin, was officially introduced in Kordofan in
1820. In the Sulu Archipelago the sultan stabilized the exchange
rate of certain cotton pieces used as currency, and the rate was
determined in such a way that it never changed again, regardless
of increasing or diminishing imports.
When an inflation threatens a primitive tribe, caused by a change
of fashion or by excessive imports of new values, a wise financial
policy is the only means of saving the investors' property just as
in our civilization. This happened, for instance, in the year 1840,
when Shah Omar of Bornu decreed that the Maria Theresa taler
and the Spanish dollar would henceforth be legal tender and
that cowrie shells should become the official small change
thus eliminating all inflationary tendencies of other mediums of
exchange.
But deflation can also threaten the economic stability of a people.
An interesting example occurred during the Second World War,
and has been reported by official Netherlands sources in the Dutch
East Indies :
To the Indonesians of this remote outpost gold and silver have
no value, the accepted money long having been beautiful coloured
sea-shells formerly brought from long distances over dangerously
WALL STREET IN THE JUNGLE 215
precipitous mountain trails. As the shells are fragile the money
supply naturally must be renewed from time to time.
However, the shores where these particular shells can be found
were in Japanese hands. As a result, deflation threatened the
district with disruption of the entire economic system because of the
acute shortage of * money.'
Finally, in despair, Dutch officials administering the district
delegated an officer to Australia in an effort to solve the problem.
The Netherlands East Indies Commission then sent men to comb
the Australian beaches, but without success. Then one day an
official joyfully burst into the offices of the Commission, shouting :
" No more deflation. I've found money."
He led the astonished Dutch officials to Melbourne's leading
department store, where the shiny shells were sold as toys for
Australian children. The Netherlands administrator returned to
his district bearing bag after bag of the shiny shells, restoring
happiness and prosperity to the people.
Only a very few tribes on earth do not depend to some extent
on money to cover the necessities of their existence. Among them
are the Australian hunters and food gatherers, who know neither
poverty nor fortune. But as soon as the economic form of a society
assumes more involved and complicated aspects the conception of
money enters the people's lives. It is merely a matter of chance
and locality whether such money consists of shells, stones, hides, or
metals. The pains of poverty and the power of wealth remain the
same to all who have discovered the secrets of selling and buying.
CHAPTER NINE
From Tom-tom to Newspaper
TT^XPLORERS, ENTERING REGIONS no white man's foot has ever
JLjv touched before, are amazed to find that the natives of the
deserts, the prairies, and the jungles often receive them without
surprise and in some cases even have quarters and food ready for
the members of the expedition. Questions about how these people
learnt of the approaching visitors are answered with a vague and
evasive : " We were told," or, simply, " We knew." How does
primitive man in the deepest wilderness without modern systems of
communication obtain this information ?
Many a sheep farmer in Australia has been mystified by the
sudden disappearance of his loyal native workers who, after a few
days of absence, return to work as though nothing had happened,
furnishing after long hesitancy the explanation : " We were sum-
moned home by our tribe under penalty of death if we should
not follow the call." What call ? How were they notified in the
barren wilderness of the Australian bush ?
Civilized man, venturing into the wilderness, must reckon
with the fact that a perfect system of wireless telegraphy has
been invented and perfected by primitive men. Their ancient
methods of disseminating news are foolproof ; short circuits,
static disturbances, magnetic storms, or strikes never impair
their efficiency/ The struggle for life is merciless in the wide-
open spaces, and the speed with which the news is received and
passed on may save or doom human lives. The white man can
scarcely hope to learn all secrets of the native codes, but, taking
notice of their intricate and perfect nature, he cannot help but
admire the brains that originated them.
The simplest medium of communication is, of course, language.
It leads to the development of other acoustic methods of news
communication. In contrast to these acoustic methods initiated
by language, there are optical means of broadcasting news which
furnish in their development the link to the beginnings of script.
Radio and newspaper the approach through the ear and by the
eye are our own two principles used for disseminating news.
Even though their means of expression have been magnificently
perfected to-day, these same two principles have served the same
purpose since the dawn of time. Among primitive methods, we
find that acoustics language and sound is used by societies
216
FROM TOM-TOM TO NEWSPAPER 217
whose domains are comparatively small, while the application of
optical devices is mainly found among tribes occupying the great
open spaces.
The small communities of agricultural peoples, whose largest
political unit is the village, have developed systems of communi-
cation mainly based on the principles of sound, or acoustics.
The herdsmen and related peoples, on the other hand, whose
bands are scattered over wide areas, have developed the optic
system of news dissemination. Their optic systems led finally,
in the old Thigh cultures, to the invention of script, with the drawn
picture as its original manifestation.
It was not until the emergence of the high culture that both
principles, the acoustic and the optic, were perfected and blended
into the complicated instruments of news agencies and other
institutions exclusively dedicated to the current enlightenment
of the public. Originally the art of writing was developed by
the priests and kept secret to serve their own purposes. This,
however, does not mean that all methods of news communication
originally served religious aims. From the earliest times, we
can detect two parallel efforts stimulating the manifold systems
of news communication : a rationalistic, purposeful desire, and a
religious impetus.
In principle, the difference between our modern methods of
news communication and those of the primitives is not as
fundamental as one might assume. Telegraph, newspaper, and
radio, however wide their range of effectiveness, do not reach
all members of the population immediately.
Even to-day many rural communities use means of communi-
cation which resemble those of the children of nature. Thus,
in parts of our modern civilized world, when the town-crier's bell
calls together the inhabitants of a village to hear a proclamation of
the city council or the announcement of the next town meeting,
he makes use of a system almost identical to that of the natives
of New Guinea, Africa, and South America, where the village
drum transmits important news to the community. What is the
difference between an illiterate delivery woman of any * civilized '
backward region who marks down pieces of ordered merchandise
by drawing symbols representing radishes, flour, or household
gadgets, and the North American Indian who uses mnemotechnic
pictorial sequences to record the traditions, songs, and victories
of his tribe ?
But the analogies go much further. When a knot in a hand-
kerchief serves to remind us of an errand, when a black mourning
218
THE .ORIGIN OF THINGS
band around our sleeve announces a death in one's family, when
a road sign tells us where to go, when a gong calls us to dinner,
when in olden times a stick was broken over the convict, when
St John's fire glows on the mountain-tops of Europe what
difference is there between these announcements and, for instance,
the carved message sticks of the Australians, the mourning paint
of the Tasmanians, the trail-
marking branches of Siberian
tribes, the tearing of grass leaves
when the verdict is spoken by
the Loango judge, and finally,
the smoke-and-fire signals of the
prairie tribes, the Puelche, the
Australians, and the Papua ?
They all spell out some kind of
message, and are understood by
those whom they concern.
The oldest means of human
communication is language, and
there is no people on earth with-
out a language. Language does
not function by the spoken word
alone, but may assume all forms
of expression which the physical
structure of the organs of speech
allows. The Veddas of Ceylon
and the Central African Pygmies
communicate the news in a
peculiar whispered sing-song.
An American W.A.C. corporal,
Margaret Hastings, marooned by an aeroplane accident during the
Second World War in a valley of the New Guinea mountain-
side, heard "a wave of odd, continuous sound," which grew
" louder and louder and closer and closer. It sounded exactly
like a pack of dogs yapping." It turned out to be a signal sum-
moning the native helpers to the spot of the accident. The
New Guinea natives are very crafty with this sort of wireless ;
they call each other from mountain-top to mountain- top, with
intermediate stations relaying the news.
Among the Negritos of Northern Luzon, five different types of
news criers have been distinguished by the explorer Vanoverbergh,
who describes them as :
GONG OF THE AVUNGURA
Belgian Congo
American Museum of Natural
History, New York
FROM TOM-TOM TO NEWSPAPER
219
(1) A shrill cry, at a very high pitch, long, and without variation
in tone. " Where are you ? " Very often used in the forest.
(2) A cry similar to the preceding, but lower in pitch. " What
is the matter ? " " What do you need ? " Very often used in the
forest in answer to (i).
(3) A cry similar to the preceding, but much shorter, and
followed in one continuous emission of voice by another one, at a
pitch considerably lower and very short. This means : " Come
along/' " All right," " Come this way," etc. Very often used in
the forest, also used alternatively by people approaching a house
or a meeting place.
(4) A shrill cry, very long, starting at a very high pitch, and
lowering gradually until extinction. This cry is emitted by all
present and in chorus, when there is a peal of thunder or an extra-
ordinary gust of wind. The fifth type is * merely emotional/
The Hurons and Iroquois, by long-drawn-out ' scalp-cries,'
announced the number of enemies slain in
battle. S wanton points out that among the
Creek Indians, " whooping also formed a
kind of means of communication/' and he
distinguishes between the " death whoop "
and " the whoop of the successful warrior
coming home with a scalp."
Primitive villagers of India warn their
neighbours of adjoining communities of
tigers threatening their live stock, as
Corbett tells us :
Standing on a commanding point, maybe
a big rock or the roof of a house, a man
coo-ees to attract the 'attention of a neigh-
bouring village, and then shouts the message
across in a high-pitched voice. From village
to village the message is thus broadcast in an
incredibly short time. Hence it was usually
possible to learn of the man-eater's attacks
shortly after they occurred.
WAR DRUM
With drumstick of the
marrow of the raffia
palm
Pangwe, West Africa
After G. Tessmann
But however strategic the position of the
caller, the capacity of the human voice is
comparatively weak. It was, therefore,
only logical to amplify its range by substituting artificial instru-
ments to make the news audible to all who should be reached.
The western Bantu invented for this purpose an intricate system
of signal pipes. Flute signals are in general use in eastern Sudan
220
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
and in the northern Cameroons. Signal horns and shell trumpets
call the population together to encourage the fighting warriors
AFRICAN SLIT DRUM
Musewh of Ethnology, Cologne
among the Wute of the Cameroons, the Zueva and Caribs of South
America, the Admiralty and Caroline Islanders. The bugle of
our modern armies is used in a
similar way.
Another signalling instrument
of acoustic news communication,
and the most prominent one at
that, is the slit drum or signal-
ling drum, a typical cultural
element of the simpler agricul-
tural societies of West Africa,
South America, and New Guinea.
It consists of a whole tree or
part of a trunk, completely
hollowed out but with both end
segments left intact. The upper
middle section has a long and
comparatively narrow slit into which one or more drumsticks are
inserted to produce, in proportion to their size and width and
the force applied by the drummer, a series of easily distinguish-
able sounds of different pitch. The resulting variety of effects
SIGNAL DRUM OF THE TUCANO
INDIANS
South America
After Koch-Grtinberg
FROM TOM-TOM TO NEWSPAPER 221
makes possible the development of complete code systems of
endless possibilities.
These cylindrical tom-toms may be of smaller size or even of
different shape, like the box drums of some African tribes, The
Banda, a Ubangi tribe of French Equatorial Africa, have two
distinct types of drums. One, the linga, a large tree-trunk
mounted on four feet, is beaten with two sticks of different size,
both with hard rubber balls at their ends. This is mainly used
to communicate from one village to another. The second model,
the okporo y smaller and of conical shape, is beaten with the hand
or with a light stick. Its sound
mainly accompanies the funeral
ceremonies of the tribe.
All kinds of messages may thus
be sounded. They may be of
a social or ceremonial nature, SIGNAL DRUM OF THE BANSSA
or they may announce current Cameroons, West Africa
events like an approaching After Max Schmidt
safari. When entering a village
in Nigeria, the explorer Hives-Lumley was preceded by mighty
drum-calls. They said to all who h*ad ears to hear : " Come
to the market-place without fear ! Come ! The white man is
here and wants to speak to you. No war palaver ! Come ! "
Audible for many miles, it was repeated at frequent intervals to
make sure that everybody had had a chance to spell it out. As
a rule, the big drums are set up in the middle of the market-place
and thus represent a kind of local cable office from which all news
of general importance can be disseminated to the entire population.
Many South American Indians use similar models, often
equipped with additional tongues protruding into the slit. Such
tom-toms, sometimes called teponatzli after ancient Mexican
and Central American models which were their possible proto-
types, summon the community together in the Zueva settlements
of Colombia, among the Cara of Ecuador, and among the Jivaro
and Tukano in the Orinoco and Amazon regions. Beaten with
rubber-topped sticks, they can be heard at very great distances.
They announce the approach of the enemy, and call for the erection
of defence structures ; they summon the villagers to join in peace-
ful gatherings. Often they are decorated with exquisitely artistic
carvings.
The natives of the Gazelle Peninsula have, like their brethren
of New Guinea, worked out drum codes of great variety, and
are able to express anything they want to broadcast, be it the
222 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
arrival of visitors or ships or the results of a successful pig hunt.
Almost every farmhouse boasts its own drum and can communicate
with the other participants of the ' party line/ The Nor-Papuans
of Dallmann Harbour, New Guinea, have, besides the big dobon
slit drum which sounds the news, smaller hand drums or voagon
of hour-glass shape, richly carved, with lizard-skin coverings at
one end. The voagon accompanies their dances and songs, while
the dobon not only is employed for the ' broadcast to all/ but may
also be used for private communication between two individuals.
An expert connoisseur of their drum language, the missionary
Father Joseph Schmidt, who managed to listen in on many of their
private and public drum conversations, has transcribed them very
skilfully by indicating the variations of sound volume by dots of
smaller or larger size. The following examples are some of the
results of his eavesdropping.
If, for instance, a hungry husband comes home in the evening
and finds that his wife is still out fishing on the lagoon he may
call her home as the brown-skinned Saijam did, by this signal :
The last six beats are Sarjam's personal ' initials/ his individual
signature.
Not only the individual caller but also the sib as a whole has
its own characteristic ' alarm bell ' or * theme song ' to enable the
listener to distinguish immediately the identity of the sender
and to know whether merely one man or the whole community
speaks. The sib ' signature ' is called morob. If, for instance,
not only Saijam's wife but all women of the community should
be absent unduly long the individual husbands would not call
their wives home, but the sib itself would * speak ' in one single
morob signal :
I
Each drum call, individual or morob, has its own name. This
makes it easier for the village gossips to talk about the latest news.
Some old women who hear, for instance, the gankabaret, know
immediately that at a certain household the ordered goods have
been delivered, but that the boy who brought them found nobody
at home. He will therefore beat the drum to spell out the
gankabaret to the absent customer :
FROM TOM-TOM TO NEWSPAPER 223
This publicity given to private affairs by the nature of drum
signals can be very upsetting to a thief who, hearing the naboa-
rom, knows that the whole community has been urged by its
sounds to give him a good beating at sight. He may be in hiding
at the moment, but the naboarom rings in his ears as an unpleasant
reminder of things to come :
Everyday occurrences, joys and tragedies, are thus shared by all.
Every one loves to follow the invitation to the community
house, broadcast by the ' tobacco drum ' signal, sdkein dob on,
with its four different volumes of sound, as the dots indicate :
and all are grieved by the sombre monotony of the brag atan
(' the spirit speaks ') signals which heralds the sudden death of
an adult member of the community.
The complicated nature of the signals requires careful listen-
ing. To make this easier, they are preceded by an introductory
theme for identification purposes. For* each morob or sib signal,
this permanent * station identification ' is :
The variety of the drum calls of this tribe is boundless. Among
the standard messages are : the warning call, the gathering call,
the betel-nut call (all men are to come to the community house,
bringing betel nuts along), the coconut call, the pig's-teeth-dog-
necklace call (these * moneys ' are to be brought along for a trans-
action of exchange, for instance, for the purchase of a canoe),
and many others.
While the drum call is appropriate for humans, ' ghosts ' and
' spirits ' do not respond to it. Their dignity requires the sound
of the brag flute, a sacred instrument which only men may play.
This is one of the principal privileges taught to the young men
during their initiation ceremonies. No man can be of any influence
in the community who does not know how to play it well. The
sound of the brag flute is supposed to be the voice of an individual
sacred spirit who is lured to the spot when he hears it. If the
player's skill satisfies him the brag spirit himself will enter the flute
to be carried along to the house of worship, the brag house, for
further ceremonies.
224 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
Of much wider distribution than the acoustic means of com-
munication are the optical systems. The methods of communi-
cating by visible signs start with the possibilities provided by
the human body. Just as the simplest acoustic means of com-
munication is language, so the gesture is the simplest form of
optical communication. It may be used to indicate single key
words representing numbers, objects, moods, or directions ; or
it may be perfected into an actual substitute for speech J?y adding
a sequence of mimic or gestural expressions to make whole
sentences for the purpose of co-ordinated conversation.
Examples of the first type are the gestured numbers of the
Tikar of the Cameroons, or the word signs of the Prairie Indians
who express, for instance, the term ' female ' by a combing
gesture, a * tent ' by an imitation of the conical shape of their
homes ; ' death ' by an * adverse ' gesture of both hands, the
* sun ' by a circle, a ' tree ' by an indication of its branches, and
so forth. The second type of the use of the gesture the creation
of regular sentences by purely mimic expressions enables its
users to speak to each other in full detail without the utterance
of a single sound. The ancient author, Adair, deeply impressed
by the perfection of this sign language, described it very eloquently.
The present American Aborigines seem to be as skilful Panto-
mimi as ever were those of ancient Greece or Rome, or the modern
Turkish mutes, who describe the meanest things spoken, by
gesture, action, and the passions of the face. Two far-distant
Indian nations, who understand not a word of each other's language,
will intelligibly converse together, and contract agreements, without
an interpreter, in such a surprising manner, as is hardly credible.
Thus, primitive man has solved a problem which, from the
Tower of Babel up to the lengthy translations necessitated by
the diverse language of members of the United Nations Council,
has not been solved by civilized man. The sign language, this
Esperanto of the wilderness, is or was used by many American
and African tribes.
Only the very recent invention of the radio has changed the
ancient belief that sight reaches farther than sound. During the
preceding periods of time, optic means of communication had
the advantage so far as range was concerned. For this reason, the
attempt was made to develop the effectiveness and perceptibility
of the human gesture by the addition of other optic signals, like
smoke and fire, which could reach greater distances.
When, for instance, an Indian spotted a buffalo herd, he hurried
FROM TOM-TOM TO NEWSPAPER 225
to an elevated spot in sight of his village, lifted a blanket with
both hands over his head, and let it sink down slowly a gesture
which set the whole community in action. This * Morse Code '
of lifting and lowering a blanket at certain meaningful intervals
was further perfected by the alternative covering of a smoking
fire and its exposure which, again, made it visible at even greater
distances. If no fire was at hand dust was thrown up and down
for a similar effect. The Seminole Indians, " when they went
hunting, divided into parties which preserved the proper distance
from one another by smoke signals. They would light a fire
and, as the film of smoke rose, they would stop it at intervals by
throwing a blanket over it " (Swanton). Smoke and fire signals
directed the battle movements of the South American Puelche
and Ranqueles. The ancient Gallians used similar signals in their
wars against Caesar.
The same effect can be achieved by light signals. The Cibicu
Indians used them in 1902 when the newly arriving government
agent, accompanied by representatives of the Cibicu, descended
the range toward their valley. These representatives began, as
Reagan tells it, " to signal, by flashing sun-rays across the inter-
vening space by small reflecting locking-glasses, " announcing
that the white man was coming. " The reflected glasses of the
valley answered back : * It is well. We are well. We have plenty
to eat.' And so on." When the party finally arrived they found
" every Indian in the valley there to receive them, having been
called together by the signalling."
To avoid the necessity of a continuous repetition of important
signals, means were found to give such recurring messages a
lasting quality. This is the purpose of the road signs, the warning
signals, the appeals for help, and, in a way, of the property marks
also.
The Shoshoni Indians build sign poles on heaps ot stones,
indicating the exact direction of water places. Kiatexamut
Eskimo travellers indicate the way they have taken by grass-
trimmed sticks planted along the trail. In Africa the Ewe of
Togo let the experts of the jungle go ahead to show the group
following the ' right ' way by covering the * wrong ' trails with
leaves and with grass. The Tungus indicate the presence of
traps by cutting a small tree, attaching to it an arrow pointing
downwards. This arrow points upwards if the hunter has left the
neighbourhood.
But the trail is not only marked for the traveller it may also
display signs of warning to keep others away from regions of
8
226
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
acute danger. The Apache place a dead owl or its effigy, both
images of death, on a trail leading to a place of disease. It has
been reported that when smallpox broke out in their region owl
effigies were placed at once on all the trails leading toward the
camp and that " no Indian ventured that way, and consequently
no one got the smallpox. "
While such signs are destined
to keep the passer-by away for
his own good, others are erected
to call him to a clearly defined
place in order to bring help to
some one in need. I saw such
signs among the Montagnais-
Naskapi Indians of Labrador
who live in a subarctic climate
on their huge, isolated hunting
grounds, often many miles away
from their ,next tribesmen.
Since their living conditions are
extremely severe they have de-
veloped a very efficient signal
system of mutual assistance. A
call for help directed to the
anonymous public must be
answered by anyone who hap-
pens to see it ; refusal would be
considered criminal. Notched
sticks planted along the trail
indicate the direction of the
stricken camp. In most cases the victims suffer from starvation or
exposure. A prospective helper, seeing the sign, either hurries
immediately to the place of need or, if he himself is not adequately
equipped, attaches an additional message to the original pole, either
stating when he will return or advising the next passer-by of what
he should do to join the mission of mercy. These sticks tell the
whole story : not only the direction of the stricken camp but
also, by the depth of the grooved notches and their shape, the
nature of the illness and the number of persons involved. Small
wreaths woven of branches bring the helper's message to the
attention of other passers-by. The blackening of the tell-tale
notches announces that any additional helper would arrive too
late, as death has already claimed its victims.
Property marks, very common among many peoples, are
MONTAGNAIS-NASKAPI SIGNAL-
POSTS INDICATING THE NEED
OF ASSISTANCE
After Julius E. Lips
FROM TOM-TOM TO NEWSPAPER
227
announcements to the public that a certain object belongs to a
certain person or group of persons ; as such, the announcement
includes a suggestion of threat against a possible thief. Things
may be the property of a whole group and so marked, like the
canoes of the Eskimo or the reindeer herds of the Lapps and
Tungus. The latter cut their property marks in the
ears of their animals, while the Samoyeds burn them
in their thighs. Each property symbol may be used
only by those entitled to it, be they individual, family,
or band. Its use is forbidden to anyone else. The
same custom of branding the herds with property
marks of the tribe or band is customary among the
Arabs, who mark their camels, sheep and horses with
their wasm. Property marks are also known among
Canadian and American Indian tribes and, although
this type of * announcement ' is not too frequent in
South America, it is nevertheless used by the Mbaya,
Ashluslay, and Chiriguano, who put their property
marks on animals, slaves, or tools, and, last but not
least, even on their women. The modern animal
breeders of civilized countries stick to this ancient
custom as most practical ; even race-horses thus
wear their stables' crests. The initials on our own
brief-cases, handbags, pieces of luggage, etc., belong
to the same category.
Another group of communications is directed not
merely ' to whom it may concern ' but to specified
individuals or a distinct group of persons. Such
communications may be of a private nature like, for STICK
instance, a commercial order, or they may be of Kimberleys
political or diplomatic content. Western
Among these the carved message sticks of the Australia
Australians are of a more mnemotechnic significance, After F. D.
since they require the interpretation of the messenger. McCarthy
The text, a mere memory aid to the carrier, may
consist of invitations to feasts or initiation ceremonies, or it may
be a regular commercial order like a carved stick sent by the
* firm ' Sandy to the ' firm ' Cangaroo requesting * by express ' a
specified quantity of the narcotic pituri plant, for which prompt
payment in spears and boomerangs was guaranteed.
Of an international nature are primitive ' diplomatic bundles *
or * diplomats' sticks/ which serve intertribal affairs. Such news*
carrying bundles sent by American Indians to the United States
228 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
Government contain sometimes a feather-trimmed ear of corn
whose hollowed-out inner part is filled with tobacco (offer of the
pipe of peace). Around its centre a woollen cord is slung, also
trimmed with yellow feathers. The message reads : " The pipe
shall be smoked by the President/' In other words, it is a
declaration of peace.
For declaration of war, the Lutsu of eastern Tibet send a carved
stick trimmed with feathers to their enemies, to advise them that
many hundred warriors are already on their way to invade" the land
with the speed of a bird's flight. The Niam-Niam of Africa
declare war by planting an ear of corn and a chicken feather in
the enemies' path, attaching an arrow in a near-by branch. This
means that anyone disregarding these signs will die by the arrow,
especially if he should try to rob the fields or to kill other people's
chickens.
Occasionally the contents of such messages or letters can be
of an extremely personal nature ; they may even be love-letters.
To this type of communication belongs the love-letter of a Yukagir
girl scratched on birch bark, although it may not be without a
touch of European influence. (See illustration opposite.} Its message
is sad, written by a disappointed soul. In a house (A and B)
sits the jilted girl (C), the letter-writer. The crossed lines indicate
grief. The dotted line in the upper right of C is the girl's braid
of hair. F is her rival, a Russian man stealer, with braids and
skirt. G is the untrue lover whose infatuation with the Russian
girl is evidenced by the cross lines of the upper ornament. The
line J, leading from the rival to A, cuts through the love lines of
the man G and the letter-writer. M is the latter's faithful thoughts.
is a Yukagir suitor who tries to win her affections. P and Q
are the children of the unfaithful couple, F and G. Summed up,
the message reads : " You left me for that Russian woman who
blocks your way to me. You may even have children with her.
1 shall always grieve, thinking of you alone, although another
man offers me his love."
Another variation of these international or personal mnemo-
technic * letters ' is the method of establishing records with the help
of counting boxes, knotted cords, or wampum belts. The Cara
of Ecuador put pebbles of different shape, colour, and size into
small wooden boxes to record numbers or occurrences. Similar
boxes are in use also along the Peruvian coast-line. More famed
are the khipus or knotted cords found in the ancient graves of
Peru. They were mainly used to * write down ' administrative
facts, registering the amounts of taxes received and the like. It
FROM TOM-TOM TO NEWSPAPER
229
is true that poems and literary works have also been transcribed
in such khipus, but their principal purpose remained the mnemo-
technic support of the spoken word. The colours of the diverse
strings indicate the object of the record (province, tribe, type of
peoples involved, etc.) ; the shapes of the knots express numbers.
* Footnotes ' were added by side-strings. These khipus had for
F G
B
LOVE-LETTER OF A YUKAGIR GIRL
Birch bark
After K. Weule
their special guardian a government official known as the khipu-
camayox. However, their use was not restricted to Peru alone.
Ancient China and the regions influenced by its culture were
another centre of khipu * writing/ and this system is still in use
among many Indian tribes of South America.
Occasionally combined with pictorial drawings, the wampum
belts of North American Indian tribes served as legal instru-
ments in concluding a contract. Although originally their ' texts '
were decipherable only by the two contracting parties, they became
a kind of regular news communication after the significance of
their arrangement and their colours (white and purple) had become
230 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
commonly known. In 1682 William Penn concluded his famous
territorial treaty with the chieftains of the Lenni-Lenape at
Shakamaxon with such a wampum belt, which belt is to-day
owned by the Pennsylvania Historical Society.
LONE DOG'S WINTER-COUNT PAINTED ON BUFFALO SKIN
Sioux Indians
American Museum of Natural History, New York
All these message- expressing tokens have one thing in common
which raises their importance beyond the sounded and the flashed
signals of older cultures : they are of a lasting nature ; they
constitute records. But still, they need an interpretation of the
symbols used, and a correct interpretation at that.
FROM TOM-TOM TO NEWSPAPER 231
Of a more realistic nature are pictures of things : they can
speak for themselves. Thus we observe among the optical
mediums of communication a clear trend towards the drawn
picture as a means of expressing a message. The pictorial draw-
ings and paintings of the arctic tribes, the Prairie Indians, the
natives of the western Carolines, and the Pelew Islands furnish
excellent examples of the development of this type of news com-
munication. In the records of these peoples we find descriptions
of everyday occurrences, of special events, and of the tribal
traditions. The correctness of the recorded texts is continuously
checked by the community, and heavy penalties are in store for
scheming propagandists who try to mislead public opinion by
reporting the news in a purposefully wrong or incorrect manner.
Most famed among the pictorial documents are the chronicles
or * winter-counts ' of the North American Indians, in which im-
portant events in the history of the tribe were rendered permanent
by drawings of the persons, animals, scenes, etc., involved. Well
known is the walam olum (true-to-life painting) of the history
of the Delaware Indians from * pre-pale-face ' times. Theirs
and other tribes' lives and adventures are recorded in this fashion ;
and we find on their painted buckskins, coats, and tent coverings
the detailed stones of great floods, of wars, of abundance of food,
of times of trial and deprivation, and of all occurrences that shaped
the history of their people.
Pictorial reports sometimes read like a fascinating newspaper
head-line. Take, for instance, the Eskimo report of a seal hunt
in which a sequence of twelve drawings gives a vivid description.
(See illustration below.) First, to the left, is the author, or master
ESKIMO PICTURE-WRITING
After K. Weule
of ceremonies, whose right hand points to himself, while his
left hand indicates the direction in which the event came to pass.
The man with the paddle next to him explains the way taken
by the hunting canoe. The following little man tells the time
needed to bring the hunters to the first destination of the ex-
pedition (right hand on head : to sleep ; left hand with one finger
lifted : one night). The circle with the two dots is the scene
of the first stop of the group : an island with two huts on it. To
232
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
the right of the island the author reappears to explain that the
hunters moved on to a second island this one without human
abodes where they slept for two nights (man with two fingers
raised). At this point, excitement enters the story : two seals
were sighted, as the right-hand gesture of the next man shows
(the sign for ' seal ' with two fingers outstretched). The hunters
got their harpoons ready.
The following image of a
seal symbolizes th& two
game animals. They were
shot with bow and arrow.
The aim of the hunt thus
being achieved, the men
could return home (canoe
with two occupants, their
paddles in downward move-
ment) to their durable
winter houses, depicted in
the last drawing, which
represents an igloo. This
ends the story of the seal
hunt, as written down by
an ace reporter.
But vivid as such pic-
torial descriptions may be,
they still are by their very
OLD MEXICAN CODEX
Depicting Marriage Ceremony
After the marriage ceremony has been
concluded by tying the newly-weds'
mantles together with a knot the young
husband carries his bride on his back
to an inner room. Four torch-bearing
women attendants accompany them
nature mere memory aids,
fully understood in their
significance only by the
participants in the event
itself and by those who recall it, or by outsiders to whom cp,ch
picture has been explained. If the drawings are simply used as
pictures in their objective sense the margin of their interpretation
may be wide. They can, at any rate, convey only the general idea
expressed by the person who made the drawings, and this idea
rather than the picture is the important factor.
In regions where picture writing and reading is profusely used
by the population the white invader very often took advantage of
these mediums by using the local talent to promote the teachings
of the Christian religion. For the benefit of the natives of Mexico,
Catholic priests ordered paintings of the entire catechism on great
cloths which were shown to the people during services.
It was a long way from the development of the naturalistic,
FROM TOM-TOM TO NEWSPAPER
233
accurate drawing to the purely linear and abstract ornament
the fixed character which we call a letter. There was no quick
jump from the pictorial symbol to the alphabet the steps in
between were the symbolized sentence, the word-characters,
the writing in syllables, and
finally, the phonetically
composed letters grouped
in fixed units called alpha-
bets. Not until the appear-
ance of definite characters
of one unchangeable mean-
ing, which any literate
reader can reconstruct into
words or letters of the
spoken language, can we
speak of script the charac-
teristic feature of each high
culture. The tendency of
this evolution is from con-
crete representation to ab-
stract symbol, from the
specifying picture to the
character of general sig- Calendar Symbols from Ancient Mexico,
nificance, and it is often also used as alphabetical Scheme
(1) couatl (snake) Codex Bologna
(2) couatl (snake) Codex Vaticanus B
(3) miquiztli (death) Codex Hammabur-
gensis
(4) tochtli (rabbit) Codex Nutt.
(5) cuetzpalin (lizard) Codex Hammabur-
gensis
(6) quauhtli (eagle) Codex Nutt.
(7) ozomatli (monkey) Codex Nutt.
(8) ocelotl (jaguar) Codex Vaticanus B
(9) mazatl (deer) Codex Bologna
After T. W. Danzel
NINE OF THE TWENTY WEEK-DAYS
difficult to recognize the
original form, obliterated in
the long sequence of the
development.
The written characters
of the Chinese, Babylonian,
Sumerian, Assyrian, and
Egyptian high cultures fur-
nish excellent examples of
this development.
The
Egyptian hieroglyphs can
be reconstructed to the original drawing of the object or idea that
shaped their later script characters be it the stone jug, realistically
drawn about 2900 B.C. and transferred in eight different intermedia-
ting forms to the written character * /mm ' in about 400 B.C., or
the equally naturalistic papyrus scroll of the third pre-Christian
millennium, which became in similar fashion the sign ' md 3.t,'
used for abstract notions. Even the modern Chinese script
maintains in its clear characters a marvellously simplified picture
8*
234
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
of the original pictorial representation of the objects or notions
they express.
The Assyrian cuneiforms, however, emancipated themselves
\
A D
EVOLUTION OF THE LETTER *D'
Egyptian hieroglyph; Egyptian letter; Phoenician
letter; Greek letter; Latin letter
After K. Weule
from the naturalistic image at a very early time, and it is rather
difficult to recognize the original picture in these arrow-headed
or wedge-shaped characters.
FROM PICTURE TO LETTER: EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHS
STONE JUG WITH HANDLE: the sign 'hnm 9
Hieroglyphs
290O-2800 B.C. 2700-2600 B.C. 200O-l8oO B.C. Ahout I5OO B.C. 5OO-IOO B.C.
Hieroglyph
(Book type)
* Hieratic '
or Handwritten
Characters
* Demotic '
or Popular
Script
f f r
About 1500 B.C. About 1900 B.C. About 1300 B.C. About 200 B.C. 400-100 B.C.
After Md'ller
FROM TOM-TOM TO NEWSPAPER
235
Our own alphabet probably goes back to the Phoenicians.
Almost unchanged, it has survived the ages. Some modern
sceptics, however, call it * wasteful,' and one of its most renowned
opponents, G. B. Shaw, repeatedly appealed to the British
Government to appoint a committee of economic and statistical
FROM PICTURE TO LETTER: EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHS
PAPYRUS SCROLL: the sign l md^.t^ which signifies abstract notions
Hieroglyphs
2900-2800 B.C. 2700-2600 B.C. 2000-1800 B.C. About 1500 B.C. SCO-JOG B.C.
Hieroglyph
(Book type)
Hieratic '
or Handwritten
Characters
' Demotic '
or Popular
Script
r
About 1500 B.C. About 1900 B.C. About 1300 B.C. About 200 B.C. 400-100 B.C.
After Moller
experts to create a new phonetic English alphabet with no more
than one sign for each sound. Claiming that a letter saved in
spelling is saved not once but millions of times every day, he
expressed during the Second World War the opinion that " if the
Phoenician alphabet were only turned upside down and enlarged by
seventeen letters from the Greek alphabet, it would soon pay
for the war." Nevertheless, it has worked quite well through the
millenniums.
If mankind should want to erect a monument in honour of the
illustrious inventor of script the identification of that genius
would be impossible. Not one unknown and unsung individual
23 6
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
could possibly claim to be the originator of this achievement.
We may say, however, that the priesthoods of the high cultures
had a large part in the development and perfection of their
countries' respective scripts. The knowledge of the art of writing,
the ability to transcribe the spoken or memorized word in a
permanent fashion^, meant power a power skilfully used by
all those who executed political authority throughout the course
of history. With this knowledge a new age began. History was
now recorded. The traditions, the laws, and the creeds, the
CHINESE SYLLABIC LETTERS
Mu, for 'tree' or 'wood'
After Wiese
Ren, for 'man'
formerly memorized standard works of knowledge and of literature,
could be put down in writing, to be preserved in the libraries
of the rulers and in the temples. The average citizen, however,
was excluded from the knowledge of script, which was reserved
for the priests and the state and its servants.
The material which preserved the manifestations of this new
art played a very important role. Plates of burned clay, used
by the Babylonians and the Assyrians, were among the earliest
book materials. The Egyptians used papyrus, and bundled palm
leaves were the Indian equivalent. The use of the stems of the
papyrus shrub (Cyperus), cut and glued and rolled into * books,'
was known in Egypt as far back as the third millennium B.C.
Since about 1400 B.C. parchment or raw hide (chemically depilated
and softened, then smoothed with brimstone) was used as * writing
paper.' This new material made the scroll-shaped * books' obsolete,
and led to the introduction of the present form of quadrangular
books.
FROM TOM-TOM TO NEWSPAPER
237
Parchment was a very costly material, and therefore some of
the old texts were blotted out with sponges, and the raw hide
was scraped and used again for literary documents. This thrifty
habit has enabled modern science to decipher older 'layers of
writing on such palimpsests (from the Greek palin psestos,
1 scraped off'). It has led to the discovery of many very ancient
CUNEIFORM OR WEDGE-CHARACTERS
3000 B.C. About 2000 B.C. 1000-600 B.C. New Babylonian
(Hammurabi) (Assyrian) (Nebuchadnezzar)
/\ /\
/\
Top row: The syllable an meaning 'star/ 'God/ 'heaven/ 'above '
Centre row: The syllable kur, mat, or shad, meaning 'mountains/ 'land*
Bottom row : Pictorial symbol and script characters meaning ' dagger '
After Brunnow
manifestations of knowledge, among them a palimpsest in the
British Museum on which a Syrian text of the eleventh century
was written over a Roman text of the ninth century which, in
turn, covered a seventh-century manuscript by Granius Licianus
in Unzial script.
The importance of the material in the evolution of the book
is indicated by the fact that the Latin liber means ' inner bark '
or * bast ' and that the Greek biblos stands for * papyrus/ the
material on which their ' books ' were written.
The preciousness of the materials and the painful procedure
of writing and copying books by hand made the possession of a
book a privilege enjoyed by very few people. Only the invention
238 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
of paper and the art of printing opened the road towards a wide
distribution of the cherished texts. It was probably the Chinese
who invented paper, during the second century A.D., and in this
case even the name of the genius has been recorded. Ts'ai Lun
was the name of the man who used bark, rags, hemp, and fishing-
nets for his first experiments. Through Chinese prisoners of
war, the knowledge of paper came, during the eighth century
A.D., to Turkestan. A government paper plant was founded
in Baghdad in 794. The knowledge of how to make % paper
migrated with the Arabs to Europe where, in 1340, the first paper
mill was established at Fabriano in Italy. The added invention
of printing, about one hundred years later, opened the road for
the slogan " Knowledge for all ! " and marks the beginning of the
book in our present sense.
While the main task of the book was, and is, the distribution
of knowledge, art, or entertainment, it did not primarily serve
as a medium of news communication. The use of the printed
word for the purpose of spreading the news came not until
the sixteenth century, with the religious ' Relations ' and the
pamphlets of the Reformation. The first periodically published
newspapers date back to 1609 ; they appeared in Augsburg and
Strasbourg. Significantly enough, the ancient Anglo-Saxon word
getidan and German Zeitung, both terms for the newspaper, mean
' news/
With the development of the newspaper, and the growing urge
to get the news in the quickest fashion possible, came the develop-
ment of the news services, from the horseback express messenger
who * rode post ' to our modern news agencies and their magic
slave, the electric spark. And, indeed, electricity in one form
or another, be it as radar, television, or radio telegraph and radio
broadcasting, is to-day the servant for ear and eye alike ; and
acoustic and optic means of communication are now equally
efficacious. Primitive man could not muster such magic.
But even to-day, besides these super-refined systems of modern
news communication, our civilization has maintained many
methods of the oldest times, for instance, the rockets shooting
the S O S of shipwrecked sailors into the skies. Railway, military,
and naval optical signals still remind us of the smoke-and-fire
language, and the reflection signals of the primitives. The fog-
horn and the Morse alphabet are kindred to the sound codes
of the drums of the wilderness. The radio message speaks but
to the majority of the global population it is nothing but just
another new devilish device of the white man.
CHAPTER TEN
Education without Books
EDUCATION is ONE of the key words of our time. A man without
an education, many of us believe, is an unfortunate victim of
adverse circumstances deprived of one of the greatest twentieth-
century opportunities. Convinced of the importance of education,
modern states * invest ' in institutions of learning to get back
' interest ' in the form of a large group of enlightened young men
and women who are potential leaders. Education, with its cycles
of instruction so carefully worked out, punctuated by text-books
those purchasable wells of wisdom what would civilization be like
without its benefits ?
So much is certain : that we would have doctors and preachers,
lawyers and defendants, marriages and births but our spiritual
outlook would be different. We would lay stress on < facts and
figures ' and more on a good memory, on applied psychology,
and on the capacity of a man to get along with his fellow-citizens.
If our educational system were fashioned after its bookless past
we would have the most democratic form of ' college ' imaginable.
Among the people whom we like to call savages all knowledge
inherited by tradition is shared by all ; it is taught to every member
of the tribe so that in this respect everybody is equally equipped
for life.
It is the ideal condition of the ' equal start ' which only our most
progressive forms of modern education try to regain. In primitive
cultures the obligation to seek and to receive the traditional in-
struction is binding on all. There are no * illiterates ' if the term
can be applied to peoples without a script while our own compul-
sory school attendance became law in Germany in 1642, in France
in 1806, and in England in 1876, and is still non-existent in a
number of * civilized ' nations. This shows how long it was before
we deemed it necessary to make sure that all our children could
share in the knowledge accumulated by the ' happy few ' during
the past centuries.
Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.
All are entitled to an equal start. There is none of the hurry
which, in our society, often hampers the full development of a
growing personality. There, a child grows up under the ever-
present attention of his parents ; therefore the jungles and the
savannahs know of no * juvenile delinquency.' No necessity of
239
240 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
making a living away from home results in neglect of children, and
no father is confronted with his inability to * buy ' an education for
his child.
In his perfect individual freedom the man of nature shares with
the members of the animal kingdom the privilege of passing on to
his offspring the skills necessary for survival. Close contact with
his animal brethren shows him the Australian koala bear teaching
its young how to climb the eucalyptus, their tree of life. He
observes the raccoon mother patiently showing her baby the dainty
art of washing food before eating it ; he watches the seal in the role
of swimming instructor for its child. In similar ways he instructs
his own offspring. Even if these skills are mere physical necessities
of life and cannot be included in the term * education/ as we
understand it, they undoubtedly have spiritual value.
There is not a single people on earth where the effort of education
does not embrace a twofold aim : the teaching of the technical
inheritance of the particular society for the sake of making a liveli-
hood, and, more important and more painstakingly pursued, the
endeavour to provide the child, the adolescent, the young man or
woman, with a proper appreciation of the ethical, intellectual, and
religious values that hold their community together. The means
by which these aims are achieved are as manifold as the shades of
human skin and the number of dialects spoken on this earth. By
this feeling of responsibility, even primitive man demonstrates his
superiority over the lower beings around him. That the spoken
word rather than the printed book is his manual of instruction does
not matter ; there are no professional teachers yet, but mother or
father or revered old man are the able helmsmen steering the boat
of instruction through the great stream of tradition.
For what kind of world do the peoples without written history
prepare their sons and daughters ? While their world may lack
most of the gadgets which we consider progressive, in many respects
it is much richer, more involved, more complicated than the
normated and specialized forms of the modern civilized world. The
closer a society is to the cradle of mankind, the older, the farther
removed, are its conceptions from the specialized distinctions of
present-day thinking.
There are no border-lines to separate the visible world from the
invisible the pebble, the rock, the moon, the stars, the plants, and
the animals are animated partners of man, carriers of friendly or
of hostile forces that require continuous watching, tending, and
conjuring. The mere handling of even the tools of everyday
routine, the digging stick or the grinding slab, the animal trap or
EDUCATION WITHOUT BOOKS
241
the carrying basket, may require the observance of certain tradi-
tional laws of respect or taboo which may seem superfluous to us.
But to the children of nature they are as real as the grains of the
wild grass, as night and day, as fish and fowl. The non-observance
of one such vital yet unwritten rule might cause peril for the entire
INDIAN BABY, INSPECTING WORLD FROM GRANDMOTHER S BACK
Montagnais-Naskapi, Labrador
Photo Julius E. Lips
community in a society where the whole tribe is often responsible
for one offensive act committed by one of its members.
The Zuni, for instance, respect all objects as ho'i or 'living
persons ' ; the Californian Tiibatulabal would not dare to dig a
sacred Jimson-weed (Datura meteloides) root without honouring it
with a short, respectful address ; and woe would befall the whole
tribe of the Creeks if one of their girls or women should dare to
leave her monthly ' lunar retreat' before the proper time had
elapsed. This fact, that the neglect or abuse of sacred rules by one
single person may endanger the safety of all, makes education
among primitive peoples a vital issue for the entire group. The
hazards of nature and the revengeful attitude of countless threatening
242 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
spirits make it a necessity to raise the tribe's offspring in an
attitude of awe and of responsibility unknown in our less hazardous
form of civilization.
Therefore, education in carefulness and respect cannot begin too
early. As soon as the painstakingly observed rites accompanying
each birth and name-giving are over and the physical life of the new
baby seems safe his cradle and his body are protected by charms,
prayers, and good wishes. But his developing soul is watched even
more carefully, and it is gradually impregnated with the wisdom of
olden times. From his earliest days, the child is carried about by
his mother while she collects firewood, works on the plantation, and
during the manufacture of household articles. Whether he rides
her hips, as in Africa, or sees the world from her back in one of the
ingenious Indian baby carriers, he has a part in all her activities,
and soon his little fingers will stretch out to grasp the tools she
handles. His wide-eyed stare will accompany her movements at
sacred dances, her handling of ceremonial objects, and her con-
versations on the powers of the dead.
At this tender age the primitive child is entirely his mother's.
She loves him dearly, and calls him pet names. Even his sur-
roundings are arranged im a sensitive and significant way. The
Chicksaw Indians of Oklahoma like to bed their male babies on
panther skins to benefit them with the cunning, strength, and vigour
of that superior animal, while they choose for their little girls a
layette of fawn or buffalo calves' skins to make them gentle and shy.
Any emphasis on physical punishment of small children is almost
unknown among primitive peoples, although there are other methods
on record of how to stun a child into obedience for disciplinary
purposes. Among such harmless practices is the habit among the
African Pangwe of having men and older boys set a bull roarer
into action outside the abode. Its * voice ' is interpreted to the
small fry as that of a mighty spirit, Ebzibongo, the Child Eater.
Another device for the same purpose is beating the soil with a
wooden pole, accompanying this by the sombre murmur : " The
bad man ... he has arrived. . . ." These methods furnish the
child with an early appreciation of the powers of the unknown.
The Chippewa Indians have a similar idea : they frighten dis-
obedient children by telling them that a bear's paw will " come and
get them."
Sometimes the threat comes true, and an old stuffed moccasin,
navigated by a stick from the outside, slowly appears in the tent as
the * bear's paw,' to the horror of the little offenders. In severe
cases an occasional slap may become necessary, but hardly ever any
EDUCATION WITHOUT BOOKS 243
substantial beatings or whippings. A strange manner of disciplin-
ing a naughty child is customary among the Creek Indians : the
mother scratches his legs and thighs with a sharp, two-toothed
gar-fish jaw-bone until blood appears. The explanation given for
this seemingly cruel practice centres in the belief that such bleeding
of a child has more sanitary than disciplinary advantage. There is
no need to say that all primitive peoples train their children in the
tribe's standards of bodily cleanliness. This training is especially
rigid among many Indian and Eskimo tribes whose children partici-
pate from their earliest years in the customs of steam bathing and
of frequent dips in rivers, even if the ice has to be broken first.
Just as with our children, example is the first teacher. This
holds especially true when it comes to the concepts of tact, decency,
and etiquette, which are generally of a very involved nature. The
sense of shame, for instance, is by no means inborn in man, and its
utterances change surprisingly all over the globe. The little Nor-
Papua girl of New Guinea, for instance, is by no means embarrassed
by her nakedness, but her face will get very red indeed if someone
catches her without the kerchief that is supposed to dangle from
her head. Some African and South American tribes maintain the
same innocence concerning their complete lack of clothing, but to
be seen while eating is considered an outrageous offence.
The otherwise more than liberal West African Pangwe have the
word oson (sense of shame) continually on their lips and in their
minds, and they hate the white explorer for not understanding such
fine hints as " I have to run for firewood/' or, " I look for the trap/'
which their feeling for oson forces them to invent when the urge
of nature comes. It is one of the Pangwe 's main practices while
visiting another village to ask tactfully, " Where is the way to the
village master ? " or, " If I should be persecuted, whereto would I
have to turn ? " all circumlocutions of the shunned word eduk, or
' out-house/ which no well-bred Pangwe will ever utter.
The feeling of tactfulness is extended even to the birds. The
ancestors of the Yamana of Tierra del Fuego once insulted the very
sensitive Laxuwa-bird (to them " the first robin of spring") by
their joyous shouts, " Spring is here ! There flies a Laxuwa ! "
whereupon the offended messenger of spring sent them snow and
ice to kill many people. If he flies by nowadays people stand in
silent respect to honour his shyness.
The very involved greeting customs require even more care, since
their non-observance may cause bad luck, illness, or even war.
Some tribes cower until a stranger is close enough to recognize
their peaceful attitude ; others humiliate themselves by kneeling or
244 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
throwing themselves flat on the soil. Hat, shoes, or other parts of
the attire are taken off ; or respect may require the avoiding of the
other's eye, or even the turning of one's back in his direction.
Many primitives consider it rude to address a stranger, and they
invite him silently into the abode to feed him ; only after he has
rested are the first greetings exchanged. When Stefansson visited
a strange tribe in the Mackenzie district a large crowd assembled
from which each individual tribesman stepped forth to introduce
himself with the words : " I am So-and-so. I am well disposed.
I have no knife. Who are you ? " One of the most popular
greetings is the rubbing of noses, not only as a form of salute but
also as a supreme expression of affection. The Miskito of Honduras
rub their bodies with their noses, calling this * to hear the scent/
and the reporting explorer adds : " Our manner of kissing is
abhorred and looked upon as a mild form of cannibalism."
All these customs are habitually taken in by the baby, and soon
become part of his behaviour without further teaching. The age
between infancy and adolescence is regarded by many primitives as
partly irresponsible, partly angelic. A child simply cannot commit
a crime. His wrong- doings are easily forgiven. To many West
African tribes a child is " an earlier stage of human existence, as the
caterpillar, that pre- development of a butterfly," as Tessmann puts
it. Dividing mankind into two groups, the * good/ bebin, and the
' bad/ bongus, the Pangwe do not hesitate to classify the children
among the bebin. The same explorer tells of twenty-year-old young
men who tried to excuse their wrongs by claiming that they were
'just children ' and therefore * good/ That this conception is not
regarded as paradoxical also among other tribes is evidenced by the
fact that the Koyemci clowns of the holy Zuni ceremonies, although
played by grown men, are considered * mythological children/
When the golden age of early childhood is passed we find a
stronger tendency in the boys to stick to their fathers and to imitate
their actions as trappers, hunters, warriors, fishermen, or whatever
they may be. This natural hero-worship leads them to the manu-
facture of small-sized tools and weapons fashioned exactly after the
objects handled by their fathers. Tiny traps for grasshoppers or
mice work efficiently after the principle which catches the father's
full-sized game ; fishing devices, plantation tools, game bags,
crossbows, drums, and numerous other ' toys ' are most efficient
demonstrative material of the ways of a future tribesman, and
gradually the different trades, inventions, and industries of the band
are mastered by the growing boy under the eyes of his father and
his friends.
EDUCATION WITHOUT SOOKS 245
The same holds true for the girls who, playfully first, later
spurred by ambition, imitate their mothers' moccasin-making,
manioc-roasting, acorn-gathering, spinning, weaving, and cosmetic
tricks until they have acquired full knowledge of these skills. There
is not one tribe known where the parents do not encourage their
children's efforts in this respect with continuous teachings about
the origin of these trades and skills, the mythical forefathers who
introduced them to the tribe, the animal spirits connected with
them, the supernatural beings on whose grace success depends,
and all the wealth of their beliefs and their traditions.
Gradually the children thus leave the ' angelic ' age of innocence
to enter the state of awkwardness known as adolescence. And just
as in our society, they are now given to mischief, and undergo the
first spells of the instability so typical of their age. Their games
become at times less innocent, and the ethical standards of their
group are well reflected in their actions. They may become ex-
tremely shy and restrained, or they may imitate their parents'
actions in too realistic a way at an age when they are supposed to
remain in a state of infantile purity.
The children of many West African tribes, of New Guinea, and
of Melanesia, develop very early ini this respect, while others
publicly pretend an innocence that is no longer theirs. This con-
duct, half childish still, may also lead to blasphemous imitations of
the most sacred customs of their own people. While their parents
preserve the skulls of the ancestors ceremoniously in holy barrels of
wood, crowned by revered wood carvings, the Pangwe children keep
monkeys' skulls in small containers of palm marrow to imitate with
them the sacred skull dances held by their parents in times of stress.
At this age the growing children often experience a change of
attitude on the part of their elders. Not all their pranks are readily
excused ; they encounter impatience and a certain intolerance
because of their status of not yet belonging to the ' inner circle.'
Deprived of the advantages of childhood, they still find themselves
excluded from the privileges enjoyed by the grown-ups, the
initiated.
This condition is made use of by their families ; they are expected
to take care of certain disagreeable duties, and are bossed around
by their elder brothers, while the men do not allow their participa-
tion in * grown-up' affairs. Under no circumstances, for instance,
may a boy of the Euahlayi tribe, not yet formally accepted into
manhood, kindle the fire which is considered the essence of virile
vitality. In the olden times of American history the young men
of the Creeks were " obliged to light pipes, bring wood, and help to
246 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
cook black-drink for the warriors, and perform all menial services
of the public square." Swan, the old author, claims that such
treatment " stimulates them to push abroad, and at all hazards
obtain a scalp, or as they term it, bring in the hair," because only
after this achievement were they regarded as men.
ANCIENT GHOST MASK FOR INITIATION CEREMONIES
Kiari, New Guinea
Museum of Ethnology, Cologne
When the young men and women reach physical maturity most
tribes take official note of this fact by accepting them ceremoniously
into the community. It is the exception rather than the rule when
no official initiation rituals take place, as Turquetil claims of the
Eskimo of Hudson's Bay and Voegelin of the Californian Tiibatu-
labal, although we learn that, in the latter case, the young girls
were instructed " in womanly matters " by their mothers and grand-
mothers and that old men " often lectured " to the male youth
" about hunting customs and how they were to behave." And in
the first case we are told that after they reach maturity the girls'
EDUCATION WITHOUT BOOKS 247
attire was changed into that of women. They now wore caps on
their heads.
Whether or not a formal celebration, a ' confirmation ' similar to
the one known in our high-culture religions, actually takes place,
the practical instruction in the technical skills of the forefathers
and the ethical and religious knowledge of the tribe the instruction
in civics, social behaviour, mutual assistance, and all the necessary
' do's and dont's ' are completed at the age of physical maturity,
and the young tribesman or woman can now safely be regarded a
full-fledged member of the community. If a ' graduation ' takes
place it is always preceded by a special period of instruction in
which educational, physical, and mystical conceptions are pressed
into a rigidly followed scheme the ritual of the initiation
ceremonies.
Much has been said and written about this most important ritual
by which the young man or woman of the jungle, the deserts, and
the bush is accepted into the community of his or her people.
Among the best interpreters of the facts is the Swiss scientist,
Speiser. According to him, the deepest meaning of the primitive
initiation is a communion with the most important foodstuffs of
the tribe. These vital sources of subsistence are in the trust of
certain mystical powers which yield their gifts only to those who
have earned the privilege by undergoing the sacred rites of the
initiation. As a child, the boy was fed by his parents. On the
threshold of manhood he has to earn the benevolence of the mighty
trustees of fertility before he is allowed to share their gifts. In the
age between childhood and initiation he is not allowed to touch the
all-important foods ; to him they are taboo.
In the oldest cultures the sacred powers, the trustees of the
important foods, are the ancestors, which explains in part the
ancestor worship taken over by so many of the ancient high cultures.
In the agricultural societies the ' fertility demons ' are considered
trustees of the sacred possessions, although the ancestors still act as
intermediaries between them and mortals. It is the ancestors who
help the novice to win their graces ; it is they who add to the gifts
of food the physical powers of adulthood. To win these powers
the child has to die, the adult individual has to be born a fact
which is symbolically performed at all initiation ceremonies. This
line of thinking results in the programme of the initiation period :
the beginning of the food taboos ; the kidnapping of the ' child '
by the spirits of the dead ; the preparation period for the com-
munion : seclusion, instruction in the laws of food and its prepara-
tion, with the * spirits ' serving as instructors ; physical invigoration
248 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
of the boy to bring about his maturity ; communion under
the assistance of a * ghost/ a representative of the dead ; lifting
of the food taboos ; acceptance of the novice as a full-grown
man.
But not boys alone undergo the ceremonies. In the oldest
cultures, where the hunt (pursued by the men) and the gathering
of vegetal food (taken care of by the women) are of equal importance
or the economic survival of the tribe, both sexes undergo the
ceremonies separately, with equal vigour. In the agricultural
stage, in which the importance of cultivated plants is paramount,
the initiation rites of the female sex overshadow the importance of
the * graduation ' of the boys.
When boys undergo the ceremonies they have to demonstrate to
the community that they are in full possession of the qualities that
make a man. Tests of individual courage are obligatory ; and the
symbolic death of childhood often results in actual martyrdom.
The long periods of intellectual and physical preparation take place
in seclusion in the wilderness, far removed from the comforts of
home and from the presence of the other sex. Under the leadership
of older men who play for them the roles of the spirits they undergo
their rigid ordeal. The fin^l climax is the revelation of the mystical
origin secrets never revealed to the women. Only then are they
ready for the holy communion.
There is no fixed age which would determine the exact moment
when a boy is considered ready for his graduation he may be nine
or ten, fifteen or sixteen, years old. Sometimes he has to wait
until a suitable group has been assembled for the mutual instruc-
tion ; in other cases climatic or food conditions may; delay or speed
up the great event.
What, now, are these ceremonies actually like ? Since these
sanctified traditions belong to the holiest possessions of any tribe
and since their very nature is one of utter secrecy it is extremely
difficult to gain reliable facts on the actual procedure. The rites
are almost inaccessible to any non-tribesman and, of course, to most
explorers. Only such scientists as have enjoyed years of most
intimate contact with the natives and who possess, at the same time,
the proper anthropological background, are in a position to reveal
to us the secrets of the initiation rites. Men like the British ex-
plorer, Howitt, who himself underwent the initiation rites of the
south-east Australian Kurnai, and Gusinde, who lived for many
years with and among the Selk'nam at the southernmost tip of the
South American continent in Tierra del Fuego and was finally
accepted into their tribal community, have furnished us with
EDUCATION WITHOUT BOOKS
249
factually correct descriptions. Gusinde's experiences among the
Selk'nam are a vivid example.
After proper contemplation by the revered old men of the tribe,
a date is set to relieve them of their * heavy obligation ' : to reveal
to the new male generation the fundamental secrets of their people's
history and to bestow
upon them the privileges
derived therefrom. No
age limit is set, the only
requirements being suffi-
cient mental maturity, a
proper attitude of digni-
fied restraint towards the
other sex, will - power,
and, most of all, the
ability to keep the en-
trusted secrets. The old
men say : " We observe
a fellow whether he can
hold his tongue ; whether
he has distanced himself
from childish play, and
whether he masters our
trades. If he does not
live up to our expecta-
tions we let him wait for
the next rites." If he
meets the requirements
he is accepted as a klotek,
Selk'nam, Tierra del Fuego
After M. Gusinde
GHOSTS FRIGHTENING THE INITIATION
CANDIDATES
or candidate. As soon
as the group of boys has
been selected their prin-
cipal tutor is chosen the father of the oldest participant. After
this, the wise men agree on the proper locality : it must be com-
pletely secluded, preferably on the outskirts of a forest, separated
by a large pampa from the camp, and near a beach with an abun-
dant guanaco and wild-goose supply to provide for the feeding of
the group. On the wooded fringe a roomy hut, the ha'in, is erected
as a home for the candidates. They say good-bye to their families ;
the women are crying and weeping. Their entire bodies painted
red, the kttteks follow their leader, * trembling with fear,' to be
escorted to the ha* in.
Immediately a masked ghost appears, known to the novices since
250 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
childhood days as the fierce Soorte y who now challenges an indi-
vidual kldtek in a wrestling match. When the latter breaks down
from exhaustion, the perspiration of fear on his forehead, he is asked
by the assembled men to lift with his own hands So6rte's mask
under which he recognizes to his amazement the familiar face of a
fellow-tribesman. He is advised that the now shattered miscon-
ception of his younger years, to believe Soorte a ghost, was just one
of the clever devices with which women and children are kept in awe
and respect. The betrayer of this secret is doomed to immediate
death.
The daily routine of a klotek is extremely severe. The position
of his body while in the sacred hut is rigidly prescribed. He must
neither speak nor laugh ; his eyes have to be fixed on the ground.
His food is kept to a minimum ; he is allowed very little sleep-.
His days and many of his nights are spent on long excursions
through the woods and over the mountains, always under the
leadership of an older man. To improve his ability with bow and
arrow he must regularly practise target shooting, and when he
comes home, all worn out, he has to listen in the prescribed stiff
position to the instructions in civics and history.
The following topics are the main subjects of his courses :
" industriousness, dependability, respect for older persons, obedi-
ence, altruism, readiness to assist others, sociability, and marital
faithfulness." After these rudimentary subjects have been dealt
with in full detail he is ready for the revelation of the mythological
secrets of his tribe. He learns that all ' ghosts/ in whose identity
as supernatural beings the women and children firmly believe, are
the men of the tribe, who wear masks on their heads and paint their
bodies red, white, and black. The dominating figures among them
are Xdlpen described as < female ' to add to the confusion of the
women and her ' husband,' Soorte.
It may take months before the climax of the training period is
reached. This is the revelation of the origin myth, the holiest
secret of the Selk'nam tribe, which is narrated by the most venerable
of the old men and begins with the words : " In the olden times,
sun and moon, stars and winds, mountains and rivers walked on
earth in human shape, so as we do to-day. . . ." This myth reveals
the former predominance of the women of the tribe and how they
betrayed the man, the men's revolt (in the course of which sun and
moon and animals took their present shape and fled to their present
places), and the men's resolution to invent for their own future
protection the sagas of the masked ghosts who are now played by
the men themselves. The betrayer of the secret will be killed on
EDUCATION WITHOUT BOOKS 251
the spot but it is never necessary. The Selk'nam men have kept
their secret through the centuries, and they are keeping it to-day
when they step out in the full moon during the final nights of the
rites to walk slowly and ceremoniously over the pampa from their
sacred hut, accompanied by new fellow-keepers of the secret, the
former kldteks, watched from afar by the awed women.
HOPI INITIATION
Whipping a Boy Candidate
After Dorsey-Voth
When we consider that the Selk'nam are among the most primi-
tive tribes known we may well be amazed at their deep sincerity
and their emphasis on civic virtues. Compared with our more
' encyclopaedic ' form of schooling, which lays much less stress on
moral values, this type of education does not seem ' savage ' at all.
The Australian experiences of Howitt among another tribe of
hunters and food gatherers are similarly impressive.
All tribes that feature initiation rites consider the moment when
the innermost mythological secrets of origin are revealed as the
holy climax. The Zuni Indian novices, for instance, learn at this
moment the ' true ' story of their own sacred connexions with the
252 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
ancient Katcina masks which appear at their annual feasts of
fertility. These * divine ' masks are handed down from generation
to generation.
Thus many of the mystical phenomena which we are inclined to
interpret as mere fables or tales these stories of the sacred masks,
for example take the place in primitive minds of religion, of
history, and of ethical example. They are as real to them as the
stories of the Magna Carta or of the American Pilgrim Fathers are
to us. Indeed, the intensity of their influence is much Stronger
because the ancestor spirits and the forces of nature still move
about among primitive people and may intrude upon any individual
destiny at any time. They are revengeful if blasphemously
challenged ; they can bring all the blessings of nature if correctly
revered ; and they are alive a faculty which can never be assumed
by even the most powerful figures prominent in our own history.
No wonder, then, that the moment of cognition is so important
in every man's life. The fact that the sacred shapes are imitated
by mortals does not in any way diminish their godlike qualities.
Some initiation rites emphasize the death-and-resurrection motif
in a most extreme way. Often the candidates are painted white
from head to toe to indicate that, for the time of their seclusion,
they are no longer regarded as living human beings (their childhood
is dead) ; that they are ghost-like creatures until they will be reborn
as men in the final communion with the ancestral spirits or the
fertility demons. But before they reach that goal not only are their
minds stunned by revelations, but their bodies hav^e to endure
actual torture.
Of an especially cruel nature in this respect was the annual
initiation rite of the Man dan Indians which culminated' in the fear-
some pohk-hong or hook-swinging. The candidates' skin was
incised to allow the application of skewers by an officiant who was
masked in order to conceal his identity from the novices. Heavy
buffalo skulls were attached to these skewers. The details of the
ordeal itself have been vividly described by MacLeod :
The Mandan lodge has four centre poles. Each victim has
ropes attached to his skewers, and with these he is raised on one
of the four poles, suspended in the air. He is naked, but in his
hand carries his medicine bag ; and his shield is hung from one
of his skewers. When suspended, he is then twirled around on
his own axis by an attendant. In the course of the twirling he
faints. Then the onlookers cry " Dead," and he is lowered and
laid on the ground. No one will assist a fainted hook-swinger.
He is left to lie where he fell outside of the sacred lodge until he dies
EDUCATION WITHOUT BOOKS
253
(which very rarely happens) or until he revives. It is considered
by the celebrants that in the first case the Great Spirit takes him ;
in the other case, the Spirit returns him to life.
As though this were not enough the revived candidate makes an
additional offering to the Great Spirit by sacrificing the little finger
on his left hand.
Of almost equal cruelty is the Pangwe custom of torturing the
INITIATION CANDIDATES, PAINTED WHITE,
PLAYING WARNING XYLOPHONE
Pangwe, West Africa
After G. Tessmann
secluded candidates by exposing them to the sting of especially
vicious ants two hundred nests of which have been brought to the
lodge and to the blister-raising hairs of poisonous pods. This too
is accompanied by the shouting of " We kill you ! " whereupon
the candidates start their period of seclusion, naked, their bodies
painted the white colour of death. Their sex organs concealed by
small, feather- trimmed covers, they play a special kind of xylophone
to shun away all possible human witnesses. When they finally
emerge as accepted men their bodies are painted red to signify the
joy of resurrection and the vigour of life.
Boundless indeed is the imagination that creates such means of
torture. Among these are the Nilotic Nuer custom of incising the
254 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
candidates' foreheads from one ear to another ; the piercing of
their membra with sharp leaves of grass and whipping with thorny
shrubs, both customary among the Nor-Papua of New Guinea ; and
the very widespread practice of circumcision or incision at this age,
which some scholars interpret as a * symbolic castration ' and which,
in turn, means nothing else but another form of temporary death.
After the graduation the young man feels indeed like another
person. The continuous fasting, learning, suffering, the shattering
of his childhood world by the revelation of the mystical tribal
secrets, and the feeling of having survived the tests and tortures
provide him with a feeling of pride in his manhood that will never
leave him for the rest of his life. In the light of this pride he will
raise his son and he will do all he can to provide him with the
necessary training to make him ready for the most important
experience to come : his initiation.
There exists, as we see, no evidence of co-education among
primitive peoples. The rigid nature of the tests, the entirely
different branches of knowledge usually offered to boys and to girls,
the sexual rules, and, most of all, the magic implications of the
curriculum of the jungle college do not allow a mixed attendance.
Both sexes have their lifelong-kept secrets which are the very
essence of tribal power ; and these secrets require strict isolation
of the males and females during the soul- and body-shaping
initiation rites.
Since the advent of mental maturity in girls is paralleled by a
clearly defined physical event the first menstruation is chosen by
many tribes as the signal to acknowledge their coming of age. A
principal custom known all over the world is the seclusion of girls,
as well as of married or single women, in small isolated huts, where
they have to take care of themselves in complete retirement during
their regular monthly periods. They eat from special dishes, using
separate tools and gadgets (which are often burned after use), and
emerge, when the days of seclusion are over, after a bath of puri-
fication and in new clothing all of which may also signify a long
sequence of symbolical deaths and resurrections which last as long
as their years of fitness. Strictest isolation from the male sex
during this period is not only a custom but a sacred law, and any
violation would bring sickness or death to* the offender and to the
community as a whole.
The first such event is regarded as a joyous one, and many tribes,
especially in Africa, celebrate it with song and dance, like the
Kpando of Togo who honoured a girl by the name of Dzodzeafefoe
with this ditty :
EDUCATION WITHOUT BOOKS
255
Fresh vegetable ! Fresh vegetable ! Dzodzeafefoe celebrates her
puberty. I went to see her. Her father is wealthy, and so is her
mother. A chicken had to diethey cooked it for her. And ocro-
pulp was prepared all in her honour !
TRIBAL INITIATION OF GIRLS
Vanyemba Tribe, Ngongo, Central Angola
Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago
In New Guinea a girl's first menstruation is an occasion for
showering her with gifts like a new loin-cloth, bracelets, and
necklaces made of precious dog-teeth. Before receiving these
presents, however, the girl has to undergo lengthy courses in
' civics ' and ' home economics/ culminating in the painful incision
356 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
of the holy moon-symbol in her breasts and a ceremony at the
lagoon. There, the candidates have to lie down in the shallow
water while the old women walk over their outstretched bodies.
The ' theoretical ' courses given at these occasions may require a
month or more, as among the Mbaya Indians of Paraguay, where
the mother acts as teacher after her daughter's first sign of physical
maturity. Proper notice is taken of the event among most North
American Indian tribes, too. Among the Apache, the girls' initia-
tion rites are more elaborate than the boys'. After being pursued
by her tribal sisters, the candidate has to endure a beating and a
stiff examination, after which she has to dance on a new blanket to
the sound of a drum, chased by clowns and demons.
With the rising importance of feminine influence in the agri-
cultural mother-right cultures, this milestone in a girPs life the
reaching of maturity assumed much larger proportions than was
the case in older societies. West Africa especially is the home
of most elaborate puberty rites for girls. Their initial stay in the
* college ' of preparation for adult life can grow into a permanent
attachment to the established women's secret societies which, on
occasion, may take the law into their own hands to discipline and
terrorize the male population of the region. The more powerful
such feminine organizations are, the more rigid are the preparatory
initiations.
In the Jevhe * finishing schools ' of the Gold Coast and the Slave
Coast the entering novice begins the courses with the shaving off
of all body hairs. After a cold bath her entire skin is rubbed with a
ceremonial oil. She discards her former clothing to receive a
special garb of white cotton furnished by the priest. As another
symbol of the * death ' of her former existence, she is obliged to
assume a new name (the use of the old would result in severe
punishment).
She even has to study and to adopt a new language (Agbuigbe,
the secret tongue of all club members), and to learn a new set of
rules of etiquette. Greeting her superiors, she has to fall down on
her knees, clapping her hands in a special quaint rhythm. Older
women give her daily singing lessons, and she is taught the finer
points of spinning, and of the weaving of mats and baskets, until
finally she is ready for the knowledge of the composition of secret
poisons. The stated aim of the rigid training is to kill all natural
feelings of the girl. * Only when the highest degree of self-control
seems to have been reached is she allowed to leave the place of
confinement on short trips to provide the Jevhe household with
water and firewood. Should she, in the course of these duties,
EDUCATION WITHOUT BOOKS 257
accidentally come across a member of her own family, she has to
treat him as a complete stranger.
All this is accompanied by threats and by cruel punishment.
When the Jevhe authorities do finally regard her as ' the finished
product ' she is allowed to leave the society and to return home as
a new woman. This great event of the graduation, termed the dede
lejewe me (dismissal from the Jevhe) or dede ami me (dismissal from
the oil), is performed by the priest who dedicates her to the new
life with the blood of a freshly killed chicken and returns her to her
parents, adorned with colourful flowers and feathers. At home she
is received with great joy. But for four more months she is not
allowed to speak her native language, the Jevhe, but has to keep on
using the secret Agbuigbe exclusively.
Although her stay at the * college ' of the secret society is merely
a temporary one, the fact that she becomes one of the enlightened
remains with her for the rest of her life. The influence of this
relationship may go even further : she may desire to become one of
the * professionals/ In this case, she returns and has to undergo
tests, which may gain her an influential post in the inner circle of
the secret society. Even if she leaves the league to marry, she can
at all times appeal to the society to defeAd her rights if, for instance,
there should be some marital trouble. She always can find a ready
asylum on the premises of the society, whose authorities will take
her side and force her husband to pay a substantial ransom if he
insists upon her return.
These ' colleges ' existed and will continue to exist long after the
* finishing course ' is over. By the continued protection they offer
to their alumnae they increase the women's influence at home
and within the community to a considerable degree. Hundreds
of such women's secret societies exist all over Africa, like the
Niengo Society of Southern Cameroons (a word meaning ' water-
nymph '), the Lesimu of the Bakoko, and the Sandi of the Vey.
Most of the women members of these societies are entitled to hide
their identity while in office by wearing a special type of black
wooden mask with a carved coiffure of characteristically arranged
coils. A whole set of costumes and cosmetic tricks go with this
outfit to accentuate the wearer's * supernatural powers.'
Among the best known of these secret societies is the Bundu
Club of Mendiland (Nigeria), which acknowledges three degrees
of graduation : the novice, or serving dtgba, who also acts as an
assistant at the religious ceremonies ; the normeh, or Bundu she-
devil, who executes the decrees of the highest woman official, the
soweh. While the digba is merely a freshman student, the rest of
9
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
MASK OF A
BUNDU NOVICE
West Africa
the women assume the authority of a regular Vehmic court. All
marks of identity hidden under their armour-like black garments,
hands and faces covered with white grease-paint,
the carved black mask all over their head, they
discipline and at times even kill any male adven-
turer who dares to approach the secret lodge.
He is rendered numb by the power radiating
from the soweh's ' magic ' personality. The tres-
passer who refuses to pay a
fine may be sold abroad as a
slave or may be immediately
put to death if the soweh
should silently point at him
with a magic wand.
This type of education cer-
tainly leaves its mark on the
mind of the digba long after
graduation. It leads to an
Museum of extreme development of femi-
Ethnology, Cologne nine authority which, in turn,
has created a counteraction by
the men, who also organize into secret societies
for the purpose of avoiding the presence of the
no longer weaker sex. They take care to instruct
the boys properly in these colleges, so that they
may be prepared to face the hazards of their
adult years. Also, these educational institutions
have developed into regular clubs, to which any
alumnus is always welcome.
The many political, educational, and social
powers assumed by these * colleges/ clubs, and
societies were finally reduced in the high cultures
with their specialized institutions. The state
took over the executive powers, while the priests
led the instruction of the young men and women
into the more conservative channels of religion.
Losing their complex character, the secret
societies were dispersed according to the different elements that com-
posed them. Their remnants to-day are university * fraternities '
and * sororities ' and the countless clubs and leagues throughout
the world.
The educational institutions of the high-cultured peoples of the
past do not differ much from our own, although their wealth of
BUNDU SHE-DEVIL
West Africa
Museum of
Ethnology, Cologne
EDUCATION WITHOUT BOOKS 259
subjects, their closely interwoven relationship to religious concep-
tions, and their much more intensive methods of instruction
provided a more solid background than most modern endeavours
can achieve. In the communities of the Incas, Aztecs, and Egyp-
tians, in the profound views of the mystical teachings of Islam,
Buddhism, and Lamaism, education could remain on a very high
level because it was a privilege of classes and castes. The modern
urge to make money on graduation from school did not exist in the
small group of the wealthy who took care to keep the rest of their
population in complete ignorance. At the time of Itzcouatl, the
fourth king of Mexico, who ruled from 1427 to 1440, a large
amount of sacred codici were publicly burned because " too many
copies " had been made and it was deemed dangerous that " too
many people, especially the serfs," get acquainted with the " black
and the red " (the latter being a flowery description of the black
and red scriptures of the codices).
Thus, knowledge of the written word and the invention of script,
though beneficial to a few, was not a blessing for all. In the ages
before the invention of printing knowledge was treated as the
privilege of a limited class that disdained the * ignoramuses ' and
kept them away from the knowledge laid down in carved stone, in
the guarded papyri or, later, on the daintily illuminated mediaeval
books of raw hide. The Tibetan Secret Book of the Dead contains
the ancient Lama warning to hide its mysteries from the people
because, " What good can come from the common man ? "
What a contrast to the perfectly balanced education of the
' equal start/ the thoroughly democratic instruction methods of
primitive man ! What one man wants is the knowledge of all
and the wisdom of the entire community is at the disposal of every
single member of the tribe. The development of classes in the
high cultures destroyed this ideal approach. Education became a
privilege of the wealthy. There was no longer one undivided force
of public opinion each class and caste had its own standard of
thought, of knowledge, and of etiquette ; and the young citizens
grew up to be different from each other, not to resemble the
tradition-sanctioned common ideal.
This social injustice of the educational approach in the high
cultures, this development of a small group of the educated and a
large majority of the ignorant, benefited that small and pampered
group with an education of very high quality. The excellent
schooling was skilfully furthered by the family in a home full of
servants. These parents could afford to prepare their children
wisely for their future positions of leadership.
260 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
This does not mean that this education was not strict and rigid.
On the contrary, corporal punishment and mortification of the flesh
were very important items in the curriculum as reminders of the
earlier initiation rites. In honour of the gods, children and their
families pierced their tongues with thorns, cut their ears, and
indulged in all kinds of self-inflicted torture, as the Aztec word for
midnight, netetequitpan (* the time when one practises self-castiga-
tion '), implies. Aztec parents considered lying the worst offence.
The lips of an untruthful child were pierced with thorns, unruly
boys were whipped with stinging nettles, and the girls who liked to
spend too much time away from home got their feet shackled. The
ethical teachings given by parents to their offspring were on a
very high level. They might, indeed, provide some interesting
comparisons and contrasts to our own educational principles.
Among the long series of instructions given by ancient Mexican
fathers to their sons were the admonitions :
Honour all who are older than you. Do never blame a man for
making a mistake you may be the next one to commit an error. If
some one talks to you listen to him attentively. Never precede
an older person if you can possibly avoid it. At table, never eat
and drink before them, but wait with poise. If you receive a
substantial gift, be not vain about it ; if it is small, don't disregard
it. Do not let wealth make you arrogant. Never speak an untruth.
Do not indulge in slanderous talk. Sow no enmities. If you are
entrusted with an office, do consider first that one might try to
tempt you with the offer. Do not accept it readily, even if you
are the best qualified candidate. Accept it only if they urge you
this gains you their esteem. By all this I try to fortify your heart.
Don't refuse to accept it readily. Your life's happiness depends
on it.
Similar were the mother's words to her daughter :
Never neglect your spinning and weaving, your sewing and your
embroideries. Don't sleep too much, and don't recline too long
in the shade. Relax in the fresh air. Over-sensitiveness creates
idleness and other vices. Never show that you dislike some kind
of occupation. If you cannot always fulfil your parents' wishes,
excuse yourself politely. Do not be too proud of what you own ;
the gods distribute their gifts according to their wisdom. Have
no intercourse with disorderly, untruthful, and idle women. Do
not show yourself too often in the streets and on the market-place.
Such places can cause your ruin. If you visit your relatives, show
yourself useful, take a spindle in your hands. That is all for to-day,
, my daughter ; may the gods bless you.
So prepared, the young girl could safely visit one of the two types
EDUCATION WITHOUT BOOKS 261
of school provided for her : the lyceum, where she attended the
lessons while living at her parents' house, or the temple school,
where she boarded under strict supervision, either temporarily, as
in a finishing school, or, if she chose, for life as a priestess of the gods.
The education of the young Aztec men was infinitely more
varied. At the age of twelve or thirteen the training of the sons
of noble families was taken over by the priests in the priest-house,
where the main subjects of instruction were, besides the religious
rites, a rigid physical training, the science of astronomy, and their
country's history. After graduation they were transferred to the
sing-and-dance house a most misleading name, for, far from being
a place of amusement, it was the institution where the young man
was moulded into a warrior.
The type of educational pattern varies only in details from that
of the other high-culture peoples up to the Spartans, whose ideal
of education was a rigid training in the virtues of sobriety and
discipline.
It has taken many centuries to make higher education accessible
to all. The printed book, the State schools, the professional
teacher detached from a dominating priesthood all contribute
towards a realization of the modern ideal of " an equal chance for
all," thus bringing back the principal aim of education to its
original roots.
Nevertheless, although our forms of instruction are richer in
variety of subjects, we are not always able to equal the efforts of
early man in the development of spiritual resources. With our
emphasis on vocational subjects, and the haste to make money
forced on us by an imperfect social system, truly spiritual stimula-
tion is only too often absent from the curriculum. Our * rational '
explanations of the phenomena of life and of nature deprive the
modern human soul of many of the best impulses it possessed in
earlier times.
Overcoming the ' superstitions ' of the Stone Age, we have lost
primitive man's intimate relationship with nature, his respect for
his fellow human being and for members of the animal kingdom.
It is by no means certain that our ' facts and figures ' are improve-
ments on early man's closeness to the innermost sources of history
his recognition and appreciation of the virtues, the destinies, and
the deeds of those who walked and laboured before us on this
earth.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Show begins
FROM EARLIEST TIMES men have regarded play-acting as one of
the best forms of entertainment. To-day most primitive
peoples possess a considerable repertoire of plays, ballets, and
spectacles. *
The following excerpt is no quotation from a programme of the
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo ; it is not meant as an introduction to
the bourrees, the grandes jetees y and ronds de jambe of ' The Golden
Cockerel/ It is nothing but part of the text of a show of the
primitive Papua in the South Seas.
When To Marmaki, the hero, gave the sign to start all the birds, by
twos, took their position for the dance. Far in the rear stood two owls,
in front of them two crows, and in front of them two starlings. Before
these stood a pair of white-tailed eagles, two hawks, two pigeons, two
cuckoos, two dwarf parrots, and two cockatoos. Two noble parrots
made up the first line. f
The owls opened the dance, waltzing gracefully along the row toward
the audience. As they passed the musicians with their drums the
women said :
" Look at those two ! Who ever could like them with their deep-set
eyes, surrounded by ugly white fringe?"
And yet, they were the loveliest owls you could possibly think of!
As the crows danced along the line the women said :
" Dear, aren't they pitch-black ? Who would care for them ? "
But the two birds were really gorgeous crows ! Now, the starlings
came up and danced. The women, who couldn't be pleased with
anything, whispered :
"How ugly they are with their yellow beaks and the few white spots
on their feather?!" When the proud, white-tailed eagles started, the
women gossiped :
" Who can stand their dirty yellowish colour ? " And while the hawks
danced every one could hear the women chatter :
" Look ! They have white necks and reddish-brown feathers !
Gracious! But they are ugly !" The neat little pigeons followed.
"Look at those white necks!" shouted the women. "What do they
think they are doing? Who would want to have them? "
The cuckoos were the next couple. When they danced in front of
the crowd the women mocked them:
"How unattractive you are with your speckled plumage! How
could anybody like you?"
262
THE SHOW BEGINS
263
After that, the cockatoos and the dwarf parrots went through their
paces. But the women went on to belittle the graceful movements of
the birds, and ridiculed the bright colour of their feathers. The only
pleasure they really enjoyed was their own malicious gossip.
At the end came the dance of the noble parrots; and the women
continued to pour abuse also upon their heads. But as soon as they
lifted their wings their purple-
lined undersides were displayed.
This colour was so beautiful that
the women instantly forgot their
mockery. The purple feathers
sparkled like precious stones in
the sun, and whoever saw them
wanted to touch them, to make
sure they were real. The women
threw away their drums, ran out
of their row, and tried to cling
to these noble dancers. This
frightened the birds. With one
single wild roar they all unfolded
their wings and rose into the air.
This text contains all the
elements of a real show among
primitive people dance, masks,
music, and score. It demon-
strates their deep artistic feel-
ing, their aesthetic alertness to
the effects of the theatre, their un-
usual sense of characterization,
of colour, and of individuality.
It has a pointed dialogue and
a purpose ; it also shows how
the spectators participate in the play.
Despite an evolution through the millenniums, despite the
stage tricks of modern super-technique, .despite the play-bills
quoting scores of ' back-stage ' assistants, neither the theatre in
general nor the drama in particular has changed in its essential
concepts and methods of expression. All fundamental require-
ments of the modern stage prevailed in its earliest primitive
beginnings.
When a sudden impulse of artistic curiosity to know more about
the earliest roots of the theatre leads us to the voluminous library
dealing with the history of the stage and the drama we may find
ourselves introduced to its ancient manifestations in the mediaeval
MASK ' BUSLA-MATLA '
Indians of the American
North-west Coast
Museum of Ethnology, Cologne
264 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
mystery plays and, further back, to the Attic tragedies and their
forerunners, the chorus of the satyrs' play. At this point, recorded
history of the theatre usually stops, leaving man's first theatrical
endeavours hidden in the dawn and dust of the unknown.
This much we are told : that classical Greece featured two
types of play, different from each other in mood and content
and yet appearing intermingled throughout : the sacred, classical
drama of pompous style, and the entertaining, satirical comedy
based on burlesque improvisations the mime (mimos). *As an
intermezzo, or prologue, or afterpiece, the mimos penetrated and
interrupted the sombre flow of the great tragedies, furnishing a
spell of relief from the high-strung declamations. Its form of
witty comedy, with its persiflages on everyday events and its satire
upon the leading citizens of the day, reached high literary perfection
with such authors as Herondas of Greece (third century B.C.)
some of whose writings are preserved on a papyrus scroll in the
British Museum and Decimus Laberius of Rome, who counted
Caesar among his admirers.
This classical inheritance of theatrical tragedy and comedy
was revived in France during the Middle Ages when Christian
brotherhoods, like the actors of the Confrerie de la Passion, per-
formed their religious mystery plays, while their worldly colleagues,
the * unworried children/ or enfants sans souci, performed
humorous-profane entertainment. Later, in England, both trends
were represented by the choirboys of the Royal Chapel and the
strolling players again the elements of seriousness and of joy.
Like a red thread, the influence of the Attic mimos goes through
the immortal plays of literature, from Shakespeare's jesters and
clowns to Moliere's witty valets and Goethe's Walpurgis Night's
witches all these are great-grandchildren of the ancient jokers,
always intermingled with the serious characters of the drama.
They accentuate by contrast the two elements of the theatre:
tragedy and comedy. When the Church declared that the historical
gay demons were devils, when religious taboos forbade, especially in
Mohammedan countries, all theatrical performances, the silhouettes
of the shadow plays of Java and Turkey took up the old tradition
to still humanity's craving for light entertainment by offerings of
burlesque plays in the spirit of the mimos ; our Punch-and-Judy
shows are nothing else.
But from where did the Greeks inherit their satyr plays ?
Whence originated the witty satirist who leaped on light soles
among the buskins of tragedy ? How about the origins of the
drama as such ? What were the first plays like ? What were their
THE SHOW BEGINS
265
subjects and their stage ? Who sat in the audiences, and who
were the stars ? The answers can, indeed, be found only when
we study and compare the plays and performances of primitive
cultures. To-day we find ourselves able to tr^ce back the Greek
mimos and the modern theatre to their inception.
As a result of his comparison of the Mexican with the Greek
ANCIENT FERTILITY MASKS
Fumbam, West Africa
Photo Museum of Ethnology, Cologne
drama, Preuss has found that both go back in their origin to
the fertility demons of the phallic ceremonies of primitive man.
The earliest forms of the mimos, as it was later called, were not
necessarily characterized as lowly, burlesque buffooneries. This
element was merely represented by the clown or jester alone.
The dances in honour of Dionysus and the mummings of the
chorus of the Attic comedy stand on the same level as the costumed
demons of vegetation that appeared in large numbers at the
religious feasts of ancient Mexico for the purpose of invigorating
the renewal of the gifts of the plant kingdom. However, in the
high cultures of which the Mexican was a part the connexion
between the mimos and the religious play was already so strong
266
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
that the demonic origin of the mimos deteriorated to the mere
satirical, grotesque element, even to obscene burlesque of a purely
entertaining nature.
Originally the phallic fertility ceremonies were considered
necessary to bring about
nature's cycles of renewal, to
obtain rain and therewith the
fertility of the fields, aad to
force the gods of vegetation to
produce the fruits of agricul-
ture. The * death ' and sub-
sequent resurrection of nature
were celebrated in these feasts
of the high cultures of the Old
and the New Worlds. Osiris ;
Adonis, Tammuz, Attis,
Demeter, and Dionysus are
nothing but the names of the
fertility gods whose death and
resurrection were celebrated.
The actors impersonating these
gods in their pantomimic dances
performed the plays for the
purpose of promoting the fer-
tility of the fields and of the
hunted or domesticated animals.
These mimic dances are the
beginnings of the drama.
Mimic dances, however, are
very old ; in fact, they are as
old as mankind itself. In the
caves of the later Palaeolithic
Age we find paintings on the
walls showing fertility dances
directed at the multiplication
of the prey animals like bison,
boar, bear, and deer. The drawings are done in very naturalistic
style, the actor being the witch doctor or the magician of the
tribe, wearing different masks representing the game animals.
The performances of the most primitive tribes who to-day
still represent the cultural level of Palaeolithic man like, for
instance, the Australians, the Veddas, the Fuegians, and the
Bushmen, have similar mimic dances to increase the number of
DANCING WITCH DOCTORS,
WEARING ANIMAL MASKS
From the Stone Age Cave,
Trois Freres, Ariege, France
After Be'gouin-Breuil
THE SHOW BEGINS 267
the gathered plants and the hunting animals. The communion
with the powers which are responsible for the most important
food of the tribe is symbolically performed by theatrical means.
The actor studies most attentively the bearing of the animal,
its manner of jumping, hopping, moving around. Explorers
who saw, for instance, the kangaroo dance of
the Australians express unanimous admira-
tion for the great mimic abilities of the
performers.
In addition to these fertility plays, these
ancient tribes also perform historic shows
such as those dealing with stories of the
migration of the ancestors based on age-old
traditions. The number of actors varies.
Friends and relatives of the actors adorn
them with multicoloured paints and feathers
which serve as masks. Another group of
Australian plays performed in symbolic and
mimic dances has as its subjects death and
resurrection, love and jealousy, friendship and
enmity. There is no mimic dance without
a leading theme.
While these plays are still connected in some
way with a serious or cultic idea, another
group of shows and dances is dedicated
merely to sheer mimic entertainment. It
may be termed a dance opera. This type of
play has nothing whatsoever to do with the
religious cult, although it is equally old.
These shows furnish aesthetic satisfaction and
sensual excitement, distinctly different from
the religious awe of the rituals. Best known
among them are the Australian corroborees.
The occasions for performing a corro- Ethnography, Cologne
boree are numerous. Corroborees are held
when an important wild-growing fruit is ripe, before leaving for
war, after a happy hunt, during meetings with a neighbourly tribe,
and especially as an assurance of peace between different tribes
and as a corroboration of a concluded peace treaty.
In contrast to the traditional alternating songs and texts of
the cultic rites, the words sung or spoken during the corroborees
are improvised and witty. Any merry idea is turned into a
jocose remark or gesture ; and whim is followed and expressed
DANCE MASK
Melanesia
Museum of
268 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
in strange caprice, to be repeated in chorus by the delighted
audience.
Despite its loosely knit structure, each such Australian play
has its carefully prepared climaxes : the painted actors appear
and vanish effectively in the dim light of the moon, with an
invisible orchestra of percussion instruments stirring the nerves
of the onlookers. All the joys and poetic thrills of the show come
to the Australians with these corroborees, which are sometimes
of great artistic fascination.
But it was not from the purely entertaining shows that the
mtmos and eventually the modern drama developed ; it was from
the cultic-religious performances. Evidence of the beginnings
of the mimos is discernible in the oldest cultures.
When the long sequences of the religious plays begin to weigh
too heavily on the souls of the audience the desire for a spell of
relief brings into being a dramatic character created to carry away
the awe of holy magic by his sudden and burlesque appearance,
to bring laughter back to man and to accentuate by contrast the
sincerity of the ritual drama. He is the man of the merry pranks,
the hero of joy, the great-great-great-grandfather of the scintillating
actors of the mimos, of the jesters and the clowns. Not shackled
by any chains of censorship, he leaps around the demonic actors
of the sacred plays in merry intermediate scenes of hilarious
improvisation.
The old men in their ' box ' seats in the Australian bush lose
their dignity when this painted, feathered clown appears. Watching
his antics, their eyes moisten from excessive laughter, and they
claim that their " belly is torn from emotions/' rightly recognizing
their diaphragm as the seat of joy.
Not only are the doings of men burlesqued at these occasions,
but also the characteristic habits of the animals. In the
Tasmanian Kangaroo dance the clumsy jumps of the pouch
bearers are perfectly imitated ; an emu ballet copies the stiff
movements of the bird's head while feeding ; a white man's
horse and buggy, complete with bridle and whip, trots along
the stage, with the dancers nodding like horses and neighing
appropriately.
This clownish element of entertainment intrudes even on the
otherwise very serious initiation ceremonies to offer a breathing
spell to the harassed candidates. One such grotesque interlude
is the seal dance of the Yagan of Tierra del Fuego, in which the
cowering men swing their torsos back and forth to the rhythm
of song. The way in which they shuffle in seal fashion, scratching
THE SHOW BEGINS 269
breasts and arms with their ' flippers/ and grunt at each other
between occasional hoarse barks, is side-splitting for the hunting
experts in the audience. Riots of applause reward the accomplished
actors. Equally excellent is their imitation of the sea-bird Karapu.
Its slow approach, the clipping and lowering of the wings, the
characteristic cry, culminate in a sudden ' landing of the flock '
of such naturalistic accuracy that even white observers are fascinated.
A favourite scene of two Yagan clowns is the struggle of two
vultures for a piece of meat ; this, too, raises gales of laughter.
The very good time enjoyed in the ' theatre ' by peoples even
of the most primitive cultures shows that the deepest roots of
theatrical effect have nothing to do with complicated stage
mechanisms, individual * stars/ or fashionable playwrights. Imagi-
nation is the magic cue. Where it fails, the * flop ' is born ; where
it excels, the stage is a world of miracles.
So far we have only discussed the plays and performances
of the oldest cultures, of peoples who from the economic point
of view belong to the acquisitive form of economy. With the
development of agriculture, and the domestication of animals,
man became more dependent on the mystical powers that cause
rain or drought, a bad harvest or a good one, or the sickness or
health of the animals. Thus the vefy essence of the life of the
agriculturist depends on his effort to appease the powers which
control his food supply by imploring them through performances
and dances to grant their help and co-operation.
Often we speak of the culture of the simpler farming societies,
especially those in Africa and the South Seas, as the Culture
of the Masks, an indication that the mask worn during their rites
and performances is the all-important factor in their lives. In
the mask performances the mask is the hero of the play, not the
person who wears it. The mask is the character it represents,
not its likeness. The mask is actually the spirit of the dead,
the ancestor, the animal, and this conception contributes to the
awe the play inspires.
In addition to religious plays, mask performances are given
for general entertainment. These plays deal with daily events,
history, and mythology. An amusing example of this type is
found in the dukwalli plays of the Makah Indians. The Makah
believe that every creature on earth was once human, and that
accident, neglect, or misdeed transformed it into its present shape.
The nature of these * accidents ' is the substance of the dukwalli
plays. The masks are equipped with little trap doors which are
opened during the climaxes of the performance to expose the eyes,
270 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
the mouth, or the nose of the actors to the surprised audience.
This same trick is used by the Eskimo to frighten or amuse the
onlookers at unexpected moments. The spectators' reaction is
exactly as in our theatres : applause rewards the successful play, and
results in its ' long run ' ; if it does not gain the public favour
it is received with hisses, and vanishes from the play-bill.
DANCE OF THE GRIZZLY BEARS
Sioux Indians
After G. Catlin
Apart from these purely entertaining shows, the numerous
religious cult dances and cult plays of the agricultural peoples
stress the serious religious masks of the fertility demons. The
art of the actors is mainly directed towards the perfection of the
solemn religious play. The purpose of such performances is
to remind actors and spectators alike of the innermost object
of the play : the utilization of the existing magic powers of the
unknown for the earthly welfare of the tribe. But the religious
plays that sometimes go on for weeks are occasionally interrupted
by a humour-studded, profane interlude which interests and
amuses the spectators much more than the lengthy, drawn-out
cultic ceremonies. Among the Pueblo, the Mandan, and Iroquois,
THE SHOW BEGINS
271
such alternating performances of cultic plays and entertaining
interludes are especially typical.
The ritual of the Zuni, a Pueblo tribe, calls for six major
ceremonies of which the Katcina cult is the most important.
PAUTIWA, THE SUN -GOD, DESCENDING TO
SUMMON THE KATCINAS
Pueblo Indians
After J. W.Fewkes
By " Katcinas " they mean supernatural beings symbolized by
pictures and masks. Each of these masks has its own distinct
individual characteristics, and is so clearly the image of the god
it represents that, to the Zuni, it is identical with the supernatural
being itself. All of the many masks are worn in worship of the
koko, or rain gods, who are so powerful that humans must die
at their sight. To protect their friends from this fate, reports
Bunzel, the koko " authorized masked dances, and promised
to come and stand before them " in the shape of rain. All men
272
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
of the community are members of the Katcina Society. They wear
the gorgeous ancient masks, one hundred and fifteen of which
are known by name and are individually distinguished by the
details of their costumes.
Another ceremony of the Pueblo group, the Pamiirty festival
of the Hopi Indians, begins with an impersonation of Pautiwa,
the sun god, whose mask is decorated with rain symbols. He is
the inaugurator of the whole ceremony, announcing the play and
making the rounds among all
fellow - performers, The other
individually identified masks in-
clude the fire god, the hawk and
the grey falcon, the duck and
the eagle. The players of these
characters assemble at a distance
from the village, where they
don their costumes and, led by
Pautiwa, file in closed procession
towards the scene of the play.
Reaching the stage just before
twilight, they make a striking
picture in the waning rays of the
sun. The wearers of the bird
masks show off their multi-
coloured feathers and move their
arms up and down to create
the impression of wings. Other
masks begin to sing under their knobbed helmets, and shake their
rattles ; the play begins. There are altars before which food is
offered to the Katcinas ; painted screens serve as backgrounds,
and the floor of the stage i& often decorated with colourful sand
ornaments.
Very large numbers of Katcinas appear also at another occasion,
during the Powamu festival of the bean-planting, which symbolic-
ally re-enacts the rebirth and purification of the earth, with the
* return of the Katcinas ' as its principal theme. This ceremony
is interrupted by the appearance of the Koyemci, the profane
actors of the interlude. The Katcina ceremonies call for ten
Koyemci, always appearing as a group, each of them individually
named and equipped, although they can easily be distinguished
from the other dancers by their scanty clothing. They follow their
' father/ a special leader chosen by the priests. Their bodies
are painted pink, their faces hidden under knobbed masks which
KOYEMCI MASK
Pueblo Indians
After y. W. Fcwkes
THE SHOW BEGINS 273
are moulded with clay into grotesque features. Their only
garment is a kilt of black cloth which they like to remove during
the climaxes of their caprioles. Their genitals, which are tied in
place with a cord, are exhibited freely, because " it is all right for
the Koyemci to take off their covering/' say the people ; " they are
just like children/' This childish, unformed character is their
mythological privilege. They follow the holy masks, burlesquing
their movements, a practice which often leads to obscene extrava-
gances. When they pass the houses the women pour water on them
" to induce prompt rain." Although they are hilariously funny,
they enjoy great respect. Gushing, an old author, says of them :
Silly were they, yet wise as the gods and the high priests ; for
as simpletons and the crazed speak the things seen of the instant,
uttering belike wise words and prophecy, so spake they ; and
became the attendants and fosterers, yet the sages and interpreters
of the ancient dance drama of the ka-ka (koko). . . . Named are they
not with names of men, but with names of mismeaning.
Wherever they appear, they provide for the gay side of enter-
tainment. One of them may suddenly jump among the dancers
to exclaim: " My wife made off with another man; this night I
take a little trip myself ! " Their taleats as jugglers and conjurers
are higly appreciated by the audience, For instance, they burn
a feather and then, after a deep breath, produce it from their
mouths, and make objects disappear and reappear to the delight
of the onlookers.
Their assistants, the wictcinas, throw clay balls or mud at the
bystanders ; they shoot with tiny arrows to indicate the sting of
bees, or use branches as their fools' bats, another attribute of
the clown that survived through the ages. When these primitive
clowns whip the public they ' take away the bad luck.'
To check the curiosity of the onlookers, the clown claims the
fool's bat as his privilege among other tribes also, such as the
Selish, the Nutlmatl, and the Navaho. The latter have the * sword
swallower,' who symbolically inserts a feather-trimmed stick in his
throat.
In the Pueblo ceremonies the Koyemci alone are performing
actors, while the wearers of the Katcina masks merely execute
their solemn dances. These two types of mask wearer, the religious
Katcinas on the one side and the profane Koyemci actors on the
other, must be recognized as completely different characters.
They never trespass on each other's domains, although both are
naturally of religious, cultic origin.
274
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
The Koyemci are famed as gluttons, and love to collect edible
gifts. This fondness for
food makes the role of
Koyemci desirable to the
poorer Indians, who can-
not afford the costly outfits
of the godlike masks, and
this, in turn, diminishes
the reputation of the* Koy-
emci. An influential, well-
to-do member of the tribe
never desires to play the
part of a Koyemci.
The profane interludes
KATCINA MASK, FOLLOWED BY
KOYEMCIS
Pueblo Indians
After J. W.Fewkes
during the sun-dance festi-
vals of the Prairie Indians
parallel in many ways the
performances of the Koyemci clowns. In the Okipa ceremony
OKIHEDE, THE BUFFALO DEMON, APPEARING
IN THE SPRING FESTIVAL
Mandan Indians
After G. Catlin
THE SHOW BEGINS
275
of the Mandan it is Okihede, the devil, who comes forth as the
burlesque character. On his head he wears a cap trimmed with
a black cock's comb. His face is hidden under a wooden mask
with white rings around the eye openings and pieces of wick for
teeth. A sun is painted on his stomach, a half-moon on his back.
Wearing a bison tail, he runs wild in the prairies. Often the
MUKISH CLOWN
West Africa
MUKISH ON STILTS
Vatchivoke, West Africa
After H. Capello and R. Ivens
monster ransacks the village, searching all corners of the huts and
asking for gifts. He also offers to remove vermin.
Africa, too, knows such a burlesque figure. It is the famous
joker of the Congo Basin called the Mukish. He intrudes upon
the solemn initiation ceremonies to ban imaginary bugbears.
His speciality is conjuring tricks. He may appear on stilts on
which he stalks about with great acrobatic skill. If he does not
feel inclined to appear himself he may lend out his costume to
somebody else. His main characteristics versatility and Jack-of-
all-trades abilities are the same in all parts of the world wherever
a gay improviser is needed for contrast to the serious parts of
the play.
276 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
His characteristic fondness for food and culinary excesses has
remained an ear-mark of the clown up to the high cultures, through
the Middle Ages and later, as Gargantua and Falstaff prove.
Often his very name is identical with the favourite food of his
nation, be he the French Jean Chocolat, the German Hans
Wurst, the English Jack Pudding, the Italian Maccharoni, the
Dutch Pickleherring. His masks and attributes are as manifold
as, human imagination itself. Whether he is merely distinguished
by paint and feather trimmings, as in Australia, or adorned nvith
elaborate head-dresses and masks that are masterpieces of art,
whether he uses mere branches or clay balls or complicated props
like stilts and magic tricks, nobody can be in doubt that a gay
interlude begins when he makes his appearance.
He may take the inspiration for his pranks even from the * crazy '
ideas of civilized man : Iroquois clowns imitate skaters or loco-
motives ; New Guinean jesters, inspired by their experiences
during the Second World War, jump as * parachutists ' from
trees with grotesquely outstretched arms. The Hopi caricature
of a scientist ' scribbling ' data on a shred of ' paper ' is masterly.
In Africa the most applauded clowns, for instance of the Yoruba,
are those who poke fun at the * uncivilized ' habits of the white
man.
Among some Calif ornian Indian tribes the office of clown,
hili'idaCj passes from father to son, which results in great pro-
fessional pride. These peoples would hold no mourning ceremony,
no ceremonial face-washing, without the clown's presence. The
Apache, who cure their sick with holy dances, let special ' devil
clowns ' mingle with the divine cheden devils during the magic
performances.
Likewise clowns appear even during the holy dances of Tibet
among the symbol-laden Lamaist gods and devils, to arouse gales
of laughter when they grotesquely imitate the ceremonious steps
of the sacred dancers. In contrast to the gold-studded, skull-
wearing gods, the clowns are clad in skeleton costumes with
bones painted in the proper places. It is said that once they
were ascetics so deeply absorbed in meditation that they did not
notice a thief who stripped them of their skins. Since that time
they are sworn enemies of all burglars, and are called upon to
detect anyone guilty of theft, an ability which is ascribed also to
the Koyemci.
In the people's conception, the clowns remain hilarious and
foolish but also strangely enlightened creatures, destined to be
laughed at, yet not to be ridiculed too much because, as the Zuni
THE SHOW BEGINS 277
say, " the Koyemci are dangerous. " Their genial art of impro-
visation has accompanied the clowns into their modern exile,
the circus. They alone wear the loud paint of primitive days ;
they alone can take excessive liberties with dignified visitors.
An occasional tragic touch or an extemporary line of deep wisdom
reminds us of their ancient past as partners of the holy demons.
From the figure of the clown, his troupe, and their entertaining
performances, developed the mimos of the high cultures of the
Old and the New Worlds. The line of development leads from the
mimic dances of the hunters and food gatherers to the fertility
rites and phallic dances of the agriculturists, and from there to the
high cultures, to culminate in the mimos , the people's theatre of
the Hellenes, and the beginnings of the great world theatre, the
theatre of our time.
As to the original figure of the clown as such, he was for a time
the victim of the changing development. The true meaning of the
clown as a contrasting counterpart to the holy demons, the gods of
fertility, of rain, plants, and animals, somehow got lost, or, at least,
became distorted and misunderstood in the ancient high cultures
when the states' religions absorbed some of the older rituals to
direct the souls of the ' pagan ' worshippers into new channels for
the benefit of the priests. The officially introduced mysteries and
miracle plays overshadowed the original meaning of the fertility
rites, whose elements were preserved only in isolated ceremonies
as, for instance, in the Eleusinian mysteries of ancient Greece. The
clown, that old survivor of the fertility rites, could no longer be
understood in his role as the bringer of relief, the gay interrupter.
He now stood for the entire complex of which he originally was
just a part : he was mistaken for the phallic demon himself.
In the later course of the development of the show and the
theatre, however, he regained his original purpose as a mere
clown and jester. And just like the spectators at the ancient
religious rites, our modern-drama audiences still long for an
occasional streak of burlesque entertainment. Whenever the
flow of the play becomes too tragic, too intellectual, the skilful
playwright inserts a contrasting note of gaiety, whether that note
is an outright clown or a picturesque idea of the stage director.
Goethe featured trained poodles during intervals of his Faust ;
Lessing let rope-dancers provide the comedy element.
The importance of the producer was recognized in earliest
times, whether he was the author himself directing the movements
of his characters, or an appointed dance manager, as among the
Zuni and Hopi and most Californian tribes. He is regarded
278
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
as the * big boss of the show ' who may occasionally even act as
a clown himself. In this disguise he will, for instance, criticize
a bad chieftain. ' Talking crazy,' dancing backwards, he wields
enough authority to induce the old men to get rid of an incompetent
chief and to elect a new and better one.
As for the stage, it was the wide
open spaces in the beginning, but
even tribes as primitive aa the
Fuegians calculate skilfully the effects
of proper focus, and do not allow the
audience a too close approach to the
performers. From the special hut
where the masks are kept developed
the separately constructed dance
house, as the Eskimo and many other
tribes know it. The Pueblo and re-
lated societies perform their plays on
an area distinctly designated for this
purpose.
In the high cultures the market-
place and the entrance halls to the
temples became the propylceum ; or
the king's palace served as a dramatic
auditorium. The theatre of the
Aztecs, as Sahagun and Father Acosta
describe it, " was a platform, square
and uncovered, situated ordinarily in
STAGE SCREEN OF THE HOPi the centre of the market-place or at
INDIANS, DEPICTING ALOSAKA, the foot of some pavilion. This plat-
THE IDOL OF THE HORN form was sufficiently raised to enable
PRIESTS it to be seen from all sides by the
spectators." In the Relaciones of
Cortes we find a description of the
Aztec theatre of Tlaltelolco, which was " made of stone and lime,
thirty feet high and thirty paces on a side." The * stage entrance*
is, even in the earliest cultures, reserved to the performers exclu-
sively, and the injunction " Keep out ! " stands clearly over the
doors of make-believe, although there may actually be neither doors
nor posters.
The masks may be the property of the actor ; he may own his
costume, or merely its design, or both, and when he refuses to
take part he may stop the whole show if it so happens that no
other tribesman is authorized to wear it. Sacred masks, especially,
After J. W.Fewkes
THE SHOW BEGINS 279
are often the property of the entire tribe. They can be ordered
from special craftsmen even of other tribes, as is the practice of
the Makah, who have their finest costumes carved and fashioned
by Nittinat Indian artists.
The Zuni divide their Katcina masks into two groups : the
* Katcina priests ' of ancient and permanent type, worn by the
* gods/ which are tribal property, and the * dancing Katcinas,'
used in group dances, which may be ordered by any Indian
wealthy enough to afford them. The " Katcina priests " are, as
Bunzel states, " treated with the utmost reverence. They are
danger ous." Significantly enough, also, the Koyemci belong to
the ' Katcina priest ' masks. After the dance the mask is taken
to its keeper 's home. "It is wrapped in buckskin or in cloths
to keep out the dirt, and is hung from the roof or placed in a jar.
The dangerous ones are all kept in jars. The mask is never
placed on the floor. The mask is fed at every meal. Some one
will go into the mask room with some food and feed it to the
mask." People say : " Go in and feed the grandfathers. " These
* dangerous ' priest Katcinas are supposedly gifts of the super-
naturals themselves, and are " handed down through generations. "
They are all distinguished by their complete lack of any attempt
at realism : their cloud symbols and animal or floral meanings
can be properly * read ' only by the tribespeople, which makes
their identification a science in itself. The theatre is one of the
main subjects of instruction at the initiation ceremonies.
The property rights that regulate the ownership of masks
involve also the texts and songs used ; hence we may speak of a
regular primitive copyright. The New Guinean vaim nor masks
worn in Murik can be made only by the inhabitants of one specified
village by the name of Djanein, as Schmidt relates : " All other
villages have to order it from there ; the mask lauen can only be
made in Karau."
The same applies to the songs which are owned by clearly
defined sibs exclusively. This strict copyright appears in the
earliest cultures, for instance, on the north-west coast of Aus-
tralia where, according to A. P. Elkin, " a particular chant is
sung when the design is being engraved on a pearl-shell. The
design cannot be made except by those who know the song "
in other words, by the * owners ' of the song. In the same region
dances and songs are named after their inventors, and are safe-
guarded against any infringement by non-owners. The owner
of a song may authorize a * helper ' to sing it with him, as is
customary among the Kamia of south-eastern California. Their
280 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
songs are owned by men only, and their copyright goes back
through the generations.
Songs may be sold or bequeathed, and they may be a regular
source of royalties to be paid by anyone authorized by the owner
to ' borrow ' them. The idea that a text must be paid for by
anyone who wants to use it is so strongly developed by the Zuni
that they could not conceive how the Christian missionaries,
in their efforts at spreading the new religion, could give away
the precious stories of the Bible ' free of charge.' When, among
the Winnebago, an unauthorized person and anyone except the
author himself is unauthorized tells a story he is considered
a thief and a liar, and the story is * wrong/ even if it follows the
original word for word.
The theatre of primitive man is not without change, even if
certain dances and songs belong to the permanent stock of the
stage. Scenes are continually changed, shortened, or added.
The repertoire is enlarged in many ways. Plays and danCes of
neighbourly tribes may be adopted, but they too are copyrighted,
and the privilege to perform them has to be paid for. The right
of performance is purchased from the owner, whether an individual
or a whole tribe, and no .producer from another tribe who may
have memorized the course of action during a visit would dare
to take the play into his own repertoire without having paid for it.
The most important factor in the theatre of primitive peoples,
as well as in our own, is the audience that means the entire
tribe and often even other invited tribes from the neighbourhood.
The aim of the performance is to please the masses. The theatre
is everybody's business, its offerings concern every single member
of the tribe, and as the concern of all it is truly an expression
of the public mind. Entrance fees are unknown since there
are neither producers who want to take money nor actors' salaries
to pay. And, contrary to our custom by which the professional
critic ' makes ' or dooms a play, the audience itself expresses its
opinion, unmistakably and inexorably.
Music almost invariably accompanies the shows of primitive
man. All kinds of rattles, drums, flutes, sounding sticks, and
assorted musical bows, harps, guitars, and trumpets serve to
enhance the effect, even if the play itself is not musical in its
nature.
In primitive music, however, the emphasis on rhythm is much
more pronounced than in our culture ; and this rhythm is much
richer, more differentiated, and more complicated than found
even in our symphonic music. Primitive skill in the interweaving
THE SHOW BEGINS 281
of different rhythmical themes is so great that it is impossible
for us " to grasp the rhythmical complications of primitive music
at a simple hearing/' as Hornbostel puts it. Modern music,
in its recent rebellion against an harmonic tradition, for centuries
considered the highest possible musical scheme, is going in the
direction of at least the simpler stages of the rhythmical perfection
achieved by primitive peoples.
Primitive music is not harmonic-metrical like ours, but purely
melodic-rhythmical. The idea of Democritus that man was first
impelled to make music when he attempted to imitate the songs
of birds may be partially right, as some such songs of aborigines
actually prove, but musical art as such did not develop from such
attempts. It was not the * melodies ' of the birds' songs that in-
vited imitation, but merely its gay trills and clicks that were added
to the * human ' melodies.
The earliest musical instrument was the human voice. In
primitive songs it remains strictly homophonous, even if the
occasional use of parallel octaves, necessitated by the different
pitch of the singer's voice-registers, sometimes creates a poly-
phonic impression. The oldest ' opera scores ' consist of a text
sung by the chorus leader and a refrain of short motives, often
senseless syllables rich in vowels, repeated by the chorus. When
the leader's voice took the form of questions to which the other
singers replied the alternating or dialogic song developed, to
grow with the sound of the accompanying instruments into a
regular opera libretto, even though the ' book of words ' existed
only in the memories of the performers.
Of the musical instruments which the manager of the primitive
show has at his disposal four main groups have been characterized
by Hornbostel : firm bodies, bent membranes, strings, and wind
instruments. The * firm bodies ' are the percussion instruments,
the simplest of which is the clap of human hands accompanying
song and dance. In the oldest cultures, like the Australian, sound
sticks, rattles, and additional rhythmic devices are used, at times
in combination with primitive sounding boards like calabashes
or hollow trees. Such sound sticks are used in pairs by the Papago
Indians, who rasp them upward and downward and occasionally
add to their range of sound by beating a simple, turned-over
household basket with them. The same idea induces the primitive
tribes of the Malaccan Peninsula to roll up their bast mats and
beat them rhythmically with the sticks, which causes an explosive
sound audible at long distances. Tubes of bamboo banged on
the ground are equally effective Malaccan percussion instruments.
282 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
The realization that a hollowed-out wooden body can be used as
HOUSEHOLD BASKET USED AS DRUM, WITH COTTONWOOD
DRUMSTICKS
Yuma Indians
After F. Densmore
a producer of sound led to the invention of the wooden drum,
whose manifold possibilities have pro-
vided the climax for many a dance, show,
and * supernatural ' spectacle. Among the
smaller rhythm beaters are the world-
widely distributed family of rattles
(fashioned of all imaginable materials,
like gourds, deer-hooves, cocoons, split
sticks, wood, pottery, iron and bronze)
and bells, especially used in a West
African instrument. From the sounding
stick, suspended from a tree, a long line
of evolution leads to the triangle and the
cymbal of the high cultures.
Bent membranes are used to create the
sound - producing ' membranophones.'
Their most ancient form is the bull roarer
or Waldteufel y which plays an important
role in the mystical religious ceremonies
of Australia. No non-initiated person is
ever allowed to see it. Its African parallel
is the mirliton, used to change the sound
and pitch of the human voice at equally
sacred occasions. It masks the identity
of the singer during the holy ceremonies,
and its sight is strictly forbidden to
The modern kazoo, an instrument ' to be
\
AFRICAN DRUMMER
After Bernatzik
women and children.
sung into/ is its later development. The most important instru-
THE SHOW BEGINS 283
ment of this group is the skin-covered drum, which can be found
in all agricultural regions of the globe.
The sweet sound of the stringed instruments could add its
lyrical touch to the shows of primitive man only after the invention
of the bow from which it originates ; and the bow goes, as we know,
back to man's oldest robot, the animal trap. The one-stringed
musical bow, or monochord, is the oldest string instrument.
MIRLITONS, WITH MEMBRANES FASHIONED FROM SPIDER EGG
COVERS FOR THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE SOUND
OF THE HUMAN VOICE
Pangwe, West Africa
After G. Tessmann
By the addition of more strings and sounding boards it developed
into the harp, the lute, the lyre, the cithara, the guitar, the violin,
the 'cello, and their manifold variations.
Gentle and powerful is the sound of the wind instruments.
From the twittering flute to the trumpet fanfare, the aerophones
have been effectively used to underline the dramatic climaxes
of the primitive play. From simple pipes or flutes forms of
extreme diversity have developed, be it the " quill whistle made
from a big feather cut like a cane pipe " or the scores of wooden,
bamboo, and metal flutes and pipes manufactured from Africa
to the South Seas. Malaccan natives like the sound of the wind
or aols organ, an arrangement of pipes suspended from trees.
A group of flutes strung together resulted in the invention of the
284
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
Pan pipe of all sizes, from a few inches to six and more feet, which
is the basic form of our organ.
Africa and New Guinea especially abound in flutes. In New
Guinea the sacred brag flute is the * voice J of the holy brag spirit,
while the mask is his 'face. 1 Nose flutes, mouth flutes, and
cross flutes are the best known New Guinean forms. Africa
MUSIC BOW
Gazelle Peninsula
HARP WOODEN
TRUMPET
Pangwe, West Africa
After G. Tessmann
knows them made of bamboo, wood, and iron ; the last developed
into trumpets. To render their shows more spectacular, native
African princes keep at their courts fanfare corps of thirty and more
musicians. Related to the trumpet is the horn, used in the form
of an antelope horn in Africa and still preserved as the ram's horn
of the Jewish Passover ceremony. The prehistoric European
trumpet of about 1400 B.C. was the lura, cast in bronze, which played
a dominant role in the Scandinavian and Nordic German cult plays.
The single use of one or another of these instruments and their
blending in orchestras produces the nerve-stirring sounds that seem
to translate the voices and presence of supernatural beings, even
for the white man who ventures into the audience during a
THE SHOW BEGINS
primitive show. The possibilities are tremendous, and they are
made use of with exceptional skill. From the sound sticks of
the Australians to the rhythmic trance of the drums, from the
xylophone-accompanied choruses of West Africa to the luras and
citharas of Scandinavia and of Greece, music has added the divine
touch to the spectacles of man ; it has enthralled actors and
audiences alike in the theatres of the wilderness and in the opera
houses of our time.
Rhythm sound music but older
was the spoken word. Sequences of
spoken words, as they are used in tradi-
tional plays and songs, are * texts/ and
such texts are as old as, if not older
than, the consciousness of music.
We are already familiar with the habit of
primitive tribes of using the repetition
of shouted syllables or cries as a means
of dramatic expression for the sake of
rhythmic trance during their dance plays.
Equally effective are the ever-recurring
sentences repeated by the carriers iji
African safaris, like : " Here comes the
white man, mighty with many things
a beard has he and a helmet, his face
is red, his feet are soft hahaha ! "
Such sentences turn the drudgery of everyday labour into a regular
* performance. ' To this type belongs also the Hawaiian sing-song :
Lii-coo-honua, the man,
Ola-ku-honua, the woman,
Kumo-honua, the man,
Lalo-honua, the woman . . .
repeated again and again with the names of each couple attending
the show.
A combination of the continued text and the dramatic use
of exclamations is the flowing tale song of the chorus leaders in
Australia, Africa, and elsewhere, with the rest of the singers
restricting themselves to a mere repetition of cries, syllables, or
one monotonous sentence.
The original syncretism of the oldest cultures differentiates
itself in the agriculture societies, and develops in the high cultures
to the fundamental types of literature : poetry, prose, and drama.
They became literary art in the " Ollanta " drama of the ancient
NIAMBARA FLAUTIST
Upper Nile
After Bernatzik
286 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
Peruvians, the Prakrit-language classical plays of the India of 500
B.C., and the Chinese dramatic masterpieces, especially of the
twelfth century, which have not been surpassed in form or idea.
But however complicated the rules of literature in later develop-
ments, any literary masterpiece is based upon emotion and thought,
subtleness of feeling, and beauty of expression. In this respect,
even the most renowned tragedies and comedies of the great
world theatre are in no way superior to certain lyric texts of primi-
tive man like, for instance, this little Australian alternating song
in honour of the cicada which lives on trees, the totem animal
of a tribe east of Finke Gorge honoured by ' its ' people with an
annual nocturnal show performed by a large group of elated
actors :
The little cicada: are chirping
When ev'ning blesses the West
They sing, and humiliated
Quiets down the song-bird's breast.
Down from the tree must fall then
Who self-forgetting sings :
In the sunbura-grass they quiver,
W T ith sunset-reddened wings.
The young cieadac are singing
In the Ilumba near the stream;
The tree, so heavily laden,
Sways slowly; he's adream.
The little cicada? are singing,
Inviting Night to Earth,
That it may gently cover
The Bush and our hearth.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
THE SPIRITUAL AND material possessions that characterize the
life of precivilized man are, within the framework of their
natural surroundings, rich and varied. They have homes filled
with pleasant furnishings ; they have crafts and skills ; they
travel ; they trade ; they pass round the news ; they educate
their children ; they have their joys and entertainment ; they
are aware of the grandeur of art. With all these benefits, they
are relieved from many of our modern worries from the land-
lord or the tax collector, from the hazards of a job or the wire-
pullings of politicians. Yet we call them primitives.
They have rules of behaviour but do they have laws ? They
are no angels who takes care of their criminals ? They have no
policemen who enforces the maintenance of law and order ?
What agencies represent the common interests of all ?
The general confusion about the answers to these questions
has been so great that only very recently has it become possible
to satisfy our curiosity about the development of the political
and legal institutions of primitive societies. There have been
many incorrect and even fantastic reports on their law by anthro-
pologists and on their anthropology by lawyers, with the result
that the facts have occasionally been distorted by lack of under-
standing and by sweeping generalizations.
All through the ages, from ancient history to the time of the
great discoveries and often up to our days, primitives have been
pictured as fabulous creatures either happy idlers living in
their own Gardens of Eden, or ferocious head-hunters of beastlike
savagery. It did not occur to most of the civilized observers
that they are men and women created in the image of God, that
they are " created equal/' and that they, too, strive to obtain the
supreme privilege of man : life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness, whatever the shape of that happiness may be.
In primitive society, as in ours, it is the task of the political
institutions and there are many, as we shall see to take care
of the happiness and safety of the family, the community, the
local group, the tribe, and the people as a whole. Legally and
socially, the purposes and aims of government in a primitive
society are the same as in modern society : to regulate life within
and without the community, to hold the group together, to
287
288
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
safeguard their food supply, to keep up the established order,
and to maintain peace inside and outside the borders.
In such tribes as^the Australian aborigines and the Tasmanians,
the Bushmen, the Veddas, the Botocudos, and the Fuegians,
the territorial legal unit is the local group, not the single family
or the single individual. The territory of such a local group varies
among the Australians from four thousand to ten thousand square
miles, and there are from twenty to one hundred members in
BOTOCUDO DUEL, DECIDING HUNTING-GROUND VIOLATION
After Prince Max zu Wied
such a community. The boundaries of the country claimed by
the group are well known, not only by the members of the group,
but also by those of neighbouring groups. The group in its
entirety reacts against a violation of its territory not the single
individual or the single family.
Among the Tasmanians, a violation of the boundary was
equivalent to a declaration of war. The same applies to the
Australian food gatherers and hunters, among whom boundary
violations always resulted in war. Except in the case of boundary
violations, the local group resorts to war only in cases of murder
or the abduction of a woman. It is the group's task to take
vengeance on a group, not the individual's or the family's task
to revenge itself.
But the wisdom of the wilderness and the respect for human
lives do not allow wars which are waged over a violation of hunting-
grounds to be continued until one of the fighting groups is destroyed.
Often it is decided that an equal number of men from each side
shall fight. In most cases the quarrel is settled by means of a
LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 289
duel ordered by the groups. Indeed, even then there is no intention
to continue the fight until one of the combatants is killed. It
is sufficient that one shall be incapacitated. The Botocudos, in
such a duel, leave their bows and arrows at home and use sticks
only. It may end in a general
brawl, with the women taking part
by hair-pulling.
Sometimes a local group is
forced, because of the increase of
its members and the consequent
necessity of extending its economic
basis, to make an active invasion
into the territory of another group.
J. Frazer reports such a case from
a local group of the Australian
Walarai.
AUSTRALIAN
SPEAR
They sent their public messenger
to one of the adjoining sub-tribes,
asking for a part of the latter's
land. This was refused, as being
against tribal law, and also because
the taurai in question was not big
enough to admit to the proposal.
The former sub-tribe then sent to
say they would come and take
what they wanted. The latter
answered that in that case they
would appeal for justice and help
to the neighbouring sub - tribes.
Thereupon both sides prepared for
war, met, and, as usual, much
talking and angry speech- making
followed. It was at last agreed
that next day an equal number
from each side should fight it
out, but when the time came the dispute was settled by single
combat. This is the common cause and issue of a tribal quarrel.
We also have in our society ' the common cause/ but modern
invaders don't waste much time on negotiations, and the settling
of international disputes is not as easy a matter as it was in
Australia.
Though generally death is the punishment for any transgression
of the boundary, there are certain preferred persons, messengers
who bear some distinguishing mark, who are permitted to enter
10
SHIELD
MuiTumbidgee
River,
South-east
Australia
After F. D. McCarthy
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
foreign territory at the order of a neighbouring band for the
purposes of buying, exchanging, or conferring with others of their
kind. This happens especially when the region belonging to a
band contains needed natural products, such as stones for axes,
ochre, or the much desired narcotic pituri in large quantities.
If such goods are wanted in exchange the local group concerned
has to be officially notified. In most cases an invasion of foreign
territory without permission means death. Only the great diplo-
matic skill of the elders of an Australian tribe once averted the
death penalty for an illegal trespasser.
Howitt reports that a Wudthaurung man of south-east Australia
had broken stones from a quarry of the Wurunjerri without their
permission. The two groups met at the boundary-line between
their hunting-grounds to discuss the case.
At the meeting the Wudthaurung sat in one place, and the
Wurunjerri in another, but within speaking distance. The old
men of each side sat together with the younger men behind them.
Billi-billeri had behind him Bungerim, to whom he " gave his
word." The latter then standing up said : " Did some of you send
this young man to take tomahawk stone ? " The headman of the
Wudthaurung replied : " No, we sent no one." Then Billi-billeri
said to Bungerim : " Say to the old men that they must tell that
young man not to do so any more. When the people speak of
wanting stone the old men must send us notice." Bungerim repeated
this in a loud tone, and the old men of the Wudthaurung replied :
" That is all right, we will do so." And they spoke strongly to the
young man who had stolen the stone, and both parties were again
friendly with each other.
These are typical cases of the local group's reaction to outsiders
with regard to landownership. The solidarity of the community
is expressed in their reactions to conflicts with outside communities ;
this binds all its members together with strong ties, and unifies
the band. This is only logical when we consider that a person
cannot leave the territory of his local group without the fear of
being killed. One of the great goals is to secure outward peace.
Within the community, too, preservation of peace and mutual
assistance in the securing of food are the supreme task.
The provision of food is determined by a reciprocal social
insurance, sanctioned by public opinion. Every individual knows
the norms which bind his own community. The distribution
of the kill is definitely regulated, and the part of the animal given
to the less fortunate hunter is not a gift but merely the fulfilment
of a legal obligation. When a hunter has killed a kangaroo one
LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 29 1
hind leg belongs to the hunter's father, the other to his paternal
uncle, the tail to his sister, the shoulder to his brother, and the liver
to himself. Among the Ngarigo, only the head of the killed wombat
belongs to the hunter ; all other parts are distributed within and
outside his immediate family. Regulated distribution has been
reported of a great number of other Australian tribes of hunters
and food gatherers. The providing of food is not only an obliga-
tion within the family, but it extends to the local group. The same
applies to other tribes of the same economic stage the Bushmen,
the Botocudos, and the Veddas. Among the last the honeycombs
of the rock bees are equally divided among all families.
Since the disposition of land and the regulation of food supply
are problems of the community as a whole the question arises
whether there is any private property at all in our sense of the
term. The answer to this question is not easy. But we may say
that if the term ' property ' is not used in the broad sense of the
Anglo-American law, but as " the absolute domination of one
person over one thing," then there is no private property here.
Such things as weapons, tools, ornaments, and articles of dress,
or even quarries of ochre deposits, may ' belong ' to a person,
but this private property is often burdened with many rights of
third parties, and is not exclusive. Th*e consciousness of personal
property in our sense is altogether lacking. Presents, for instance,
given to individuals shortly appear in the possession of other
persons who received them from the original recipient. " The
individual is not recognized. He has no independent right,"
write Fison and Howitt. At any rate, movables which are
valuable and necessary to the clan never can be private property.
Thus the entire daily life of the individual is embedded in
the social and legal care of society, whose strongest weapon for
the enforcement of internal peace is public opinion. Preventively,
it forces the individual to obey the law ; actively, it brings about
punishment of transgressions. The individual cannot escape
unfavourable public opinion, for he cannot leave the local group
and join another community. That would mean certain death.
For this reason alone public opinion is the strongest regulating
agency among food gatherers and hunters. The agencies of law
enforcement do not need to be well developed, and exist only
in rudimentary form.
The fundamental rule, that peace within the community must
be upheld, does not always permit the law of equivalent retri-
bution, a lex talionis (" An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth ")
often not even in the most serious of all crimes, murder within
292 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
the group. For most transgressions of the law definite punishment
has been designated. Among the Tasmanians, for instance,
adultery was punished by beating, and driving a spear through the
offender's leg. Among the Botocudos the woman who has com-
mitted adultery is beaten or branded by her deceived husband.
In Australia the same crime is atoned for by a duel of the conflicting
parties, which, however, never ends in death.
In Australia and among some other food-gathering tribes the
executive agencies of public opinion are the old men who, seasoned
in life and in the tribal laws, not only inform the younger ones
AUSTRALIAN NATIVE, USING SPEAR-THROWER
concerning the boundaries of the clan territory but also instruct
them in the laws of marriage, the rites of initiation, the distribution
of food all those norms existing from time immemorial. In
the hands of these elders also rests that judicial power which
concerns the community as a whole and is called upon when a
settlement between the parties is impossible. As well as dealing
with boundary violations, these old men have to mete out judgment
in the case of a murder of a clan member by a person outside
the clan which always results in war. Within the clan, the
cases brought before the council of the elders are those connected
with murder, sorcery, infringement of marriage regulations,
or betrayal of the secret ceremonies at the boys' initiation. The
punishment usually consists in the wounding of the culprit with
spears, but not in killing him.
Chieftainship was but slightly developed or absent. The
person with greater physical or mental agility was able to exert
considerable influence over his group r but he too was dependent
LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 293
upon public opinion. When chiefs and their functions are
described in this stage of culture they have usually been given
such positions by the white people to facilitate their dealings
with the group. A revealing example has been published by
Dawson : the facsimile of the treaty which some of the first white
settlers in Australia concluded with some so-called chiefs about
the cession of 100,000 acres of land.
These, roughly speaking, are the regulations in the legal life of
the food gatherers and hunters. The facts show that it is altogether
erroneous to describe the legal status of these tribes as anarchic.
On the contrary, the legal concepts and norms, their structure and
their applications, are shown with amazing clarity in the reported
facts. Solidarity of the community against outsiders in the case of
a boundary transgression or of war, and against insiders who
violate rules dealing with the provision of food, is the characteristic
feature. There are only slight beginnings of private ownership,
though it cannot be denied that certain individual rights similar to
ownership exist, but not in reference to the soil or to objects
valuable to the entire group or necessary for its sustenance. The
pressure from without, the wall formed by the limits of the tribal
area, is one of the strongest supports of public opinion and of its
executive agencies for the enforcemenf of legal norms within the
group.
The economic basis of the harvesting peoples another large
group of primitive tribes of the pre-productive stage has been the
cause of various special forms of legal structure and government,
different from those found among the hunters and food gatherers.
Although here, too, the local group holds the ownership of a limited
territory, the inviolability of the land is infringed upon. Using
modern terms, we may say that the absolute value of real estate
shifts to the harvesting ground, the part essential for the food supply
of the community. This part of the territory of the community
increases in value. Being the main source of support of the local
group, it now occupies the focal position in the economic and legal
situation.
The size of this harvesting area is sometimes immense a bunya-
bunya district may extend over seventy miles. The dimensions of
the lily-root territory on the Roper river and the nardoo region of
the Arunta are similar. The harvesting ground is usually the place
where the local group takes up residence, for the economic structure
demands a more settled mode of living, if only to safeguard the
storage space. Thus the harvesting ground becomes the chief
factor in the concentration of population. The number of members
294 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
of a local group is far greater in these tribes than it is among the
hunters and food gatherers.
While among the latter a transgression of the boundaries of the
tribal territory meant certain death, this is not the case among
the harvesters. There is no punishment for any transgression of the
boundaries. Indeed, the elasticity of the boundary conditions can
go so far that the boundaries are in a way nullified. The Australian
Bangerang and related tribes could take refuge in one another's
territory. At times two groups may even possess a common harvest-
ing ground. When the fruit of the harvesting ground matures the
neighbouring tribes are invited to partake of the superabundance.
These meetings exercise an important cultural influence. They
affect, so to speak, the external politics, and are the source of many
new legal institutions in the fields of primitive ' international law,'
' commercial law/ and * copyright law.' In Australia, for instance,
an extremely significant dissemination of cultural elements takes
place during the gatherings of the harvesters. These meetings are
not only occasions for trade, for common initiations, for corroborees
and games ; they also bring about cultural exchange between the
tribes. In speaking of the Kabi, Curr describes the travelling about
of corroboree plays :
(.
The poet having introduced his work to the neighbouring tribes,
these in turn invited their allies to witness it and aid in the per-
formance. In this manner a corroboree travelled, and was sung
with great enthusiasm even where not a word of it was understood.
The dramatic part in these performances was sometimes very
considerable.
The idea of a copyright law is by no means unfamiliar to these
harvester tribes who provide for an effective protection of this law.
Already we find here the beginnings of an international copyright
protection.
Many explorers tell of so-called ' neutral territories.' These are
not the same as boundary sections abandoned for fear of hostile
neighbours (as is sometimes the case among the hunters and food
gatherers), but those which have been created by a treaty of neigh-
bouring tribes. For instance, by mutual agreement the Australian
tribes on the banks of the Gregory created a neutral territory, fifty
by one hundred miles in extent, as a place for their meetings. Such
a territory has an economic as well as a legal aspect. Economically,
prohibiting the use of this land preserves the supplies of plants and
wild animals for the meetings of these tribes. The legal aspect is
that the creation of neutral regions is possible only among tribes
LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
whose economic foundation is secure within their own tribal
territory.
As for Australia, there can be no doubt that the harvesting
ground, like the land in general, belongs to the local group as a
whole. Temporarily, at the time of the harvest, individual families
may receive an assignment of certain parts of the harvesting ground,
but the land is the property of the community. Also, among the
Chaco tribes and the tribes which harvest the wild potato, and
among the Hyanyam in Matto Grosso, the ownership of the har-
vesting ground lies with the local group. In regard to the North
American Ojibway, the Menominee, and the Winnebago, early
sources such -as Catlin and Schoolcraft make it clear that the har-
vesting ground belongs to the entire local group, which distributes
the field anew to individual families before each harvest.
However, apart from the harvested products, the plants gathered
and the animals hunted are not always the exclusive property of the
gatherer or the hunter, but are handled according to rules similar
to those prevailing among the food gatherers and hunters. The
Arunta and Loritja have exact prescriptions for the assignment and
distribution of the kill. At times, the hunter has no right at all to
his prey. The right of disposal, however, does not rest with the
political local group but with a smaller*unit, the totem clan, which
is generally the economic unit.
In times of need the economic unit is responsible for the food
supply of the individual. Along the Upper Lakes it is an old rule
that, " if the food of any worthy family fails the entire food supply
of the social group is available to make up the deficiency." Chief
Pokagon writes of the harvesters of the Potawatomi : " Our people
always divide everything when want comes to the door."
Besides the collective responsibility for supplying food of the
totem group (mystically related through a mutual legendary ances-
tor : plant, animal, or inanimate object), and of the local group for
political matters, there also exists among the harvesters a develop-
ment of more detailed legal rules regarding private ownership, which
is protected by the tribe. While violations of property rights are
rare, anyone who breaks these rules is punished.
Private ownership of fruit-trees exists, and is always respected.
Among the Arunta the ownership of such a tree is indicated by
placing a bunch of grass on the branches. When a man finds a nest
of bees he marks the tree containing the honey by pulling up the
grass round the roots and placing sticks against the tree. If, in
spite of these markings, some one steals the fruit or the honey the
injured party has the right to spear the thief to death. The
296 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
punishment of spearing is meted out also to anyone who takes a slain
animal without the hunter's permission. The same punishment
also applies when an animal, merely wounded, is caught without the
consent of the hunter by some one else. If, however, a person asks
the hunter he has the right to demand part of the prey.
The thief who steals things not essential for the support of life
does not fare quite so badly. If he returns the stolen objects the
matter is regarded as settled. But if he refuses to relinquish the
stolen goods the owner has the right to spear the culprit's leg or to
throw a boomerang at him.
Private property is usually inherited by the eldest son and, if
there are no sons, by the nearest relatives.
The adulterer is occasionally punished by a temporary exile from
the local group, lasting for about two or three months. Among the
food gatherers and hunters such a sentence would mean death.
Among harvesters it is a mild punishment, and the temporal
limitation can be understood in such a tribe only.
The organization of the public power and its executive agencies
among these tribes show a fairly uniform picture : chieftainship is
not specifically developed, though its beginnings are present more
clearly than among the hunters and food gatherers. Even hereditary
chieftainship occurs. Two ( ^ays of chieftainship are open : through
leadership over a numerous and powerful totem clan, or through
the possession of outstanding individual qualities. The deciding
power is always the public opinion of the political community
that is, with the members of the local group, sometimes represented
by a council of elders or a council of the chiefs of clans. It has
often been pointed out that, especially among totemistic tribes, the
legal rules are strongly religious in character and have their roots in
the totem myths. I have not found any support for this theory ;
on the contrary, Strehlow expressly states that among the Arunta
the fundamental legal concepts are not derived from the tribal
ancestor but have apparently been developed by the council of
elders, who impart them to the young men at the initiation
ceremonies.
Another especially interesting legal institution found among these
tribes is the right of asylum and the law of taboo, the two being
closely connected. The harvesting ground was taboo until harvest-
ing time, and this taboo was lifted on a certain day by an authorized
person. After this, harvesting was allowed. Taboos similar in
effect, though not in cause, are connected with certain localities
which are regarded as the domicile of the totem spirits or as hiding-
places for the sacred totem utensils of the tribe. Among the
LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
Arunta an institution is found which is clearly a right of asylum for
members of the tribe as well as for strangers. The criminal and
the stranger are safe, and cannot be seized when they flee to this
tabooed place. Animals and plants, too, that happen to be there
are taboo. The right of asylum was probably religious in origin,
but had predominantly economic consequences. It is an example
of the reorientation of purpose in primitive law.
In contrast to the legal institutions of the food gatherers and
hunters, the legal norms of the harvesters are no longer subordinated
to the principle of tribal territory ; a transgression of the tribal or
sib territory is not punished, and only particular parts, such as the
harvesting ground or the place of refuge, are protected by taboos.
However, here too the political unit is represented by the local
group, while the economic unit is smaller.
The difference in economic form and the resulting relaxation of
enmity against outside groups have two obvious results. One is the
accumulation of a greater number of people, not only of those
belonging to the band itself, but sometimes even of others from
other local hordes. The legal result as regards outsiders is the
creation of institutions intertribal in character (neutral territories,
intertribal festivals) ; as regards internal institutions, the creation
of forces making for a great differentiation of law and norms . How
much of the external political picture has changed is shown by the
fact that, in the North American rice-fields, villages are peacefully
inhabited by members of four different tribes.
In the realm of internal politics the organization is stricter than
among the food gatherers and hunters. Above all, however
perhaps as a reaction a stronger emphasis upon individual rights
has developed in those matters that do not relate to the safeguarding
of the communal food supply for instance, the copyright law.
But also these tribes do not recognize individual ownership rights
in respect to land.
Among arctic hunters and tribes influenced by them the institu-
tions which serve the purpose of holding the community together,
safeguarding its food supply, and guaranteeing internal and external
peace, present a picture somewhat different from that of the
societies just discussed. Almost all observers emphasize their
strong communistic tendencies. For example, among the Eskimo
the borrower of a boat does not necessarily have to return it if the
person from whom he borrowed it has two boats ; and the great
whale hunt is an affair of the entire community. The * com-
munistic traits ' of the arctic people are no more strongly developed
than those of the tribes of other food gatherers and hunters, among
10*
298 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
whom we have already found the community established as legal
unit and legal subject. The distinguishing characteristic of the
arctic culture is a stronger tendency towards individualism within
a definitely democratic pattern. Although I do not go as far as
Bogoras, who says, referring to the Chukchee, " It may be said that
a lone man living by himself forms the real unit of Chukchee
society," I believe that this individualistic trait is quite easily
recognizable in the arctic world.
The boundaries of the local group fluctuate, and transgressions
of the hunting boundaries are not punished by death, whether in
the case of a member of a strange tribe or group. Often it is not
punished at all. The Tungus of the lower Amur river, for instance,
usually did not keep within their territory, but would hunt on the
lands of others, especially on the Gilyak territory, without any
quarrels ensuing. The hunting-ground, which at first probably
belonged to the local group, is sometimes divided among several
family groups. These two principles may exist side by side, or
even alternate at times.
The political unit depends on the territorial principle and not
on the kinship system. Among the maritime Chukchee, for in-
stance, the village does not consist of families related to each other,
but of those privileged to hunt. Generally the economic unit is a
smaller group than the political society. The fishing unit is the
crew of a boat and their families, whose leader divides the catch.
Among the peoples of arctic Asia and the Alaskan Eskimo, the
economic unit, be it the crew of a fishing boat, a hunting family, or
a group of families, often uses property marks for safeguarding its
catch. However, there is no proof that these are individual pro-
perty marks. They are few in number, and refer to a number of
people that is, the economic unit.
The safeguarding of the food supply is first of all the responsi-
bility of the respective economic group and then of the whole
community. The economic security of each member of the com-
munity forms the focal point of the legal aspect among arctic tribes
to such an extent that all individual rights are secondary to it, but
this is true only when the life of an individual is threatened by
lack of food.
Thus, among the reindeer-breeding European Lapps, for in-
stance, extensive use of individual property marks exists, together
with an obvious inclination towards strong individual definition of
property rights in connexion with movables. These individual
rights, however, may be violated at any time under special circum-
stances. This goes so far that even the theft of reindeer may be
LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 299
legal if the thief required the stolen animals for his own use, to
obtain the meat for eating. From the Lapp's point of view this is
not considered a theft, even though the sharply defined right of
personal ownership has been disregarded. This example is not
typical of the herdsmen but of the arctic hunters. This part of
Lapp law is a hunters' and not a herdsmen's law.
Another example, taken from the Montagnais-Naskapi, is on the
same legal level. The hunting privilege to a particular hunting-
ground can be violated at any time and by anyone who finds himself
in need of food. The stranger may hunt and may set traps, but
only to satisfy his hunger and sustain his life. Indeed, he may even
prey upon a beaver house marked as some one's property when he
is in need, but only then.
This mutual assistance is concerned only with the maintenance
of life, and goes no further. It especially does not apply to debts.
Obligations are not fulfilled by a father in his son's behalf, nor by
a widow in her late husband's. There is no such thing as solidarity
with regard to obligations among members of a family. What
mutual assistance there is, is not necessitated by pressure from the
outside, as is the case among food gatherers and hunters, but is
compelled by public opinion which, in a single-class society, is much
more powerful than in ours and has a totalitarian significance.
Public opinion is effective among the North-east Algonquians,
not only within the local group but beyond it, and can prevent an
ill-reputed member of a local group from finding refuge in another
group. In many cases this means death in the forest. Political
authority is not held by the chief even when there is a chief ; if at
all, it is held only by the elders. In the last analysis, it rests with
the public opinion of the local group as a whole.
The chief's lack of power among the Central Eskimo has been
described by Boas in these words : " His authority is virtually
limited to the right of deciding on the proper time to shift the huts
from one place to the other, but the families are not obliged to follow
him. He may ask some men to go deer hunting, others to go
sealing, but there is not the slightest obligation to obey his orders."
The same powerless position of the chief if there was such an
office to begin with, and not just one artificially created by the
Russians is reported by Bogoras of the Chukchee ; and from my
own experience I can say the same of the Naskapi, among whom
the Mistassini band has had no chief for years and up to now has
not elected one, in spite of the Indian agent's demand that they
do so.
In certain Eskimo tribes of Alaska we find exceptions to this rule ;
300 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
these are the tribes which perhaps have been influenced by the social
stratification of the North-west Americans and who not only had a
tribal organization with a chieftainship but also a vertical classifica-
tion of society, including a class of slaves. Beginnings of slavery
are further found among the inhabitants of the Aleutian Islands,
and also among the Chukchee (probably influenced by the herdsmen
tribes which were advancing from the south), who in their battles
with the Western Eskimo made slaves of their prisoners of war.
Social stratification, however, was very little influenced by this.
Expert hunters and trappers enjoy special authority, dependent
upon their personalities, and therefore they often occupy the role
of mediators and peacemakers in the community, but they too have
no unconditional authority. If a quarrel cannot be settled, or if
one party does not want to listen to reason, the elders are powerless.
To keep peace as long as possible and as long as the community as
a whole is not disturbed is the fundamental motive in the attitude
of these tribes.
In this respect public opinion has a twofold task : first, that of
a preventive which compels a positive and lawful behaviour of the
individual ; secondly, that of intervening actively in connexion
with any violation of law. However, here too it is required that an
interested group call for action and that the case be such as actually
to threaten the peace of the community. Thus the occasional trap
thief or trespasser or quarreller is not taken to task by the com-
munity, but his punishment is left to the injured party or to the
group concerned. The community more or less acts as neutral
spectators, as, for instance, in the song contests of the Eskimo.
The community, however, takes a part whenever its economic
security is threatened by the behaviour of one of its members.
This is the case with incorrigible thieves, persons who habitually
hunt on the lands of others, chronic quarrellers, and fighters in
brief, with those whom to-day we call habitual criminals. The
punishment may be tying to a tree, as among the Montagnais-
Naskapi ; beatings, as among the Eskimo of Bering Strait ; exile,
or a sentence of death which is carried out according to circum-
stances by shooting, knifing, drowning, harpooning, or in some
other way.
The procedure and the executive agencies of public opinion are
not uniform. Among the Montagnais-Naskapi there exist four
law-enforcing agencies : the chief and council, the shaman, public
opinion, and sometimes the manager of the Hudson's Bay Company
post. Among the Chukchee action was taken by a group of
especially notable men selected by the community. Finally, even
LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 30!
a single person, without any legal procedure, could receive the
command or the tacit consent of the community to kill the criminal.
As proof for the conviction of the criminal, use was often made of
an oath of the accused, never of an oath by witnesses. The accused
Chukchee called upon the sun as helper, or he swore by the bear.
These three great
different groups of
peoples which we have
so far discussed are
culturally the oldest
societies of mankind.
They correspond to
the tribes and peoples
of the Palaeolithic Age,
and have preserved
many cultural com-
plexes of early man.
Their form of economy
is acquisitive and pre-
productive. Often the
existence of legal insti-
tutions among these
tribes has been denied
altogether, but the facts
are quite different. The
law of these acquisitive
tribes is, of course,
not a judge-made law.
It is law of the people,
by the people, for the
people.
The numerous discrepancies in our society between the feeling
of the people about what is right and the decisions handed down
by the courts the opposition of law and justice hardly exist. As
in other respects, so also in legal concepts the individual is merged
in the society in which he lives, and his individual acts have reper-
cussions in the whole social structure. Individual and community
very intimately know the law, and their simple legal principles do
not require the interpretation of learned jurists. There is little
room for the theoretical angle, since their law is essentially a practical
law created for the sake of life. Its interpretation is determined by
this purpose, and so are its decisions.
Legislative or appellative corrections are equally impossible, as
BLACKFEET JUDGE WOLF PLUME
^ f ^ r , rr .
Amencan Muse
302 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
is authoritative law by rigid command from above. The permis-
sible leeway in the meting out of justice is sometimes considerable.
This does not mean that the technique of the law machinery is
chaotic or lacking. On the contrary, it is amazing how in such
primitive cultures the legal aspect is developed and how law and
procedure have crystallized into an explicit body of rules, sanctioned
MANGBETU PALAVER
Belgian Congo
American Museum of Natural History, New York
by tradition and expressed by public opinion, which is rarely
divided in these one-class societies.
With the development of productive economy, not only has the
structure of society changed but also the structure of the law.
However, this transition was not a sudden one. We still find in
the legal organization of the early agriculturists traits characteristic
of the acquisitive societies, especially in so far as the social security
of the individual and the territorial rules are concerned.
The central territorial unit of the simpler farming societies is the
village ; that is, the limited area of the village with its numerous
huts of single families and of family groups, or a single sib house
in the centre. The tribes seem to be divided everywhere into such
LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 303
independent villages, headed by a chief who is sometimes loosely
dependent upon a high chief. However, his importance is very
slight. The position of the Kai chief of New Guinea, for instance,
was indicated only by the fact that he possessed the largest field,
but his greater wealth had to be utilized in obligatory hospitality
towards his own village and towards strangers. His power was
extremely meagre, and lay in representation exclusively. He had
no right over life and death at all except among a few South
American tribes in case of war.
Authority is vested in the council
of elders. Among the horticultural
tribes matriliny was probably origin-
ally prevalent in regard to laws of
descent and inheritance, although
owing to an intricate conglomeration
of factors we have not everywhere a
very clear picture of this develop-
ment. To - day, in the woodland
tribes of the Cameroons the family
is patriarchally organized, but this
order is obviously of recent origin,
for even women can be chiefs..
Among the Cross river tribes, the
Bakwiri, the Duala, and the Batanga,
the originally matrilineal organization
may still be clearly recognized.
Land originally was common pro-
perty, and it is doubtful whether its cultivation created property in
our sense or merely a right of usufruct. The limitations imposed
upon the sale of land are a criterion. The Iroquois said : " Land
cannot be bought and sold any more than water and fire can." In
Melanesia and West Africa, too, land is not an object of trade.
Only in cultivated land do we find the beginnings of sib and family
or individual ownership.
In West Africa, Melanesia, and South America women have no
political rights or enjoy such rights only as members of a secret
society. In contrast to this, the Iroquois women stepped into the
political foreground. Women apportioned the arable land every
second year, and it was they who elected the chiefs. But their
privileges went even further : they had a veto right over the council
of the men, even in decisions on peace and war. They also had
the right to adopt strangers into the tribe, and could decide on the
fate of the prisoners of war.
PALAVER STOOL
Bamum, Cameroons
Museum of Ethnology, Leipzig
304 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
The mutual assistance rendered in the clearing of a field which
is customary in Melanesia, South America, and, although not quite
as frequently, in Africa, indicates that the responsibility for the
provision of food was not the concern of the individual but, in the
final analysis, a matter for the community. This,
however, becomes evident only in times of need,
and serves merely to prevent a too strongly pro-
nounced plutocratic development.
Although land as a rule is not owneM by an
individual, movable objects generally are con-
sidered private property. This development is
especially distinct in West Africa, where dues are
collected for membership in the secret societies.
The institution of the secret societies, especially
in Melanesia and Africa, was a more important
factor in the execution and development of the
law of these tribes than the chieftain or the council
of elders.
Executive and legislative powers among the Ekoi
of north-western Cameroons, for instance, lie in
the hands of the Ewingbe secret society, ewi mean-
ing law, ngbe standing for leopard society. Public
laws may be accepted or rejected by its members.
As the highest court of appeal in all trials, it em-
phasizes an institution unknown to the peoples of
the acquisitive group. Admission to the secret
society and advancement into its higher degrees
usually depend upon the payment of an entry fee.
Anyone is free to leave the society, but the advan-
tages of membership are such that this practically
never occurs. The legislative powers of these
secret societies often exert an authoritative type
TOP OF
CHIEFTAIN'S
MACE
Songo,
Portuguese
Congo
Museum of
Ethnology, Berlin of jurisdiction which deeply influences the demo-
cratic and introvert little communities. Only in
culturally younger groups is this jurisdiction turned over to the
constituted village community represented by the chief and by the
palaver (council) of the elders.
What such a trial is actually like may be illustrated by the
following example. If, for instance, a Bakosi creditor claims a goat
which his debtor refuses to deliver he appeals to the members of
the Losango society to help him. The secret society plants its
insignia in front of the debtor's hut. This usually works at once.
For this service the society also receives a goat from the debtor.
LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 305
If the debt is not paid immediately, and if the society's insignia
has to remain in front of the debtor's hut until the next morning,
a head of cattle has to be paid, which is eaten by the members of
the society. It is no wonder that any debtor hurries to satisfy his
creditor and the secret society.
If a man has seduced another man's wife and refuses to pay him
damages the secret society interferes in a similar way. Among the
Basa, the Mungi and Um secret societies decide in nocturnal
meetings on orders, verdicts, and penalties (the latter usually the
death penalty) which are secretly executed. The public reaction
is the statement : " The Mungi has tried us." Most secret societies
help every seeker of justice to his rights non-member as well as
member.
Among such groups of agricultural peoples of the Old World
larger political alliances extending beyond the village community
are, as a rule, unknown. The secret societies are their instruments
of international contacts. Their influence is not limited to village
or tribe, but extends, especially in West Africa and Melanesia,
over very large areas, without, however and this is significant
leading to the formation of larger political alliances or to separate
states.
This absence of political organization into larger groups is
typical only in the Old World in America we find among the
corresponding tribes just an opposite development. The best
example is the league of the Iroquois. The New York league com-
prised five, later six, tribes represented by a central council whose
decisions had to be unanimous. In spite of hereditary leadership,
this centralized body was of a loosely woven structure. Each of
the member tribes could fight its own wars or conclude peace
treaties, so long as the interests of the league were not interfered
with.
Unlike the custom of the conquering tribes of the Old World
especially of Africa and Asia the trend towards inter-tribal alliances
was strong in America, even among tribes which did not have
the makings of a nation indeed, especially among them. This
tendency may have been due to the white man's influence, as in the
case of the Cherokee, who created for themselves a governmental
organization after the pattern of the United States. The conquest
of one tribe by another and the resulting formation of classes and
of autocratic states which was the rule in the Old World, especially
in Africa, were absent among the Indians who inhabited to-day's
United States. One exception is the Powhatan empire, which
extended at the time of its highest power over a region of eight
306 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
thousand square miles and included more than one hundred and
fifty cities, mostly won by conquests.
Another fundamental difference between these African and
American tribes lies in their methods of legal procedure. In
addition to the right of self-help and the appeal to the secret society,
the West African natives of the forest region have a well- developed
trial system before the palaver court which is composed of the
chief and the elders. The defendant is summoned in various
ways, either directly by the concerned parties or through the chief.
Accepted means of evidence are torture, oath, ordeals like the
WARRIORS
After Bernatzik
drinking of poison, testimony of witnesses, and other visual or
documentary proofs. The decision of the judges is reached through
a majority of votes in secret conference, after which the verdict is
pronounced. A system of * composition ' (where an embarrassed
debtor pays a reduced amount upon agreement with his creditor)
dominates the procedure. Vengeance and other painful conse-
quences are averted by the payment of fines.
This type of minutely regulated trial procedure is unknown
among Indian tribes. Except for certain ceremonious and solemn
declarations of the parties involved, other types of evidence,
especially the many forms of ordeal, are unknown.
The economic basis of the culture* of the herdsmen, who have
no equivalents in America, is so often blended with elements of the
harvesting and agricultural societies and has been so deeply in-
fluenced by the high cultures that there are probably no herdsmen
tribes in their original form left to-day. Thus we find that most
of the present-day tribes of herdsmen adhere to mixed cultural
forms. However, despite wide divergences, we can establish
common traits of government, conditioned by the economic pattern,
LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 307
especially among the Central Asiatic and African herdsmen. The
pastures are always the property of the entire tribe. But, similar
to conditions in the harvesting cultures, the border-lines are not
clearly defined, and unauthorized grazing on foreign territory is not
punished. The tribe, as such, has hardly any legal functions the
individual principle of the patriarchal family unit predominates.
This means that the former collectivist element is superseded by in-
dividualistic tendencies. The large family group, with its brothers,
nephews, sons, and grandsons, claims even political independence.
The tribe is ruled by a chieftain, who may be elected or may
inherit his office from his father. The degree of his influence
depends on his personality and his generosity, which means that
it ultimately depends again on public opinion. In making his
decisions, the chief relies on a council of elders, and he cannot
release any important decree, especially in regard to land, without
the consent of the umakarere, as the Herero call them, or the
White-Beards, as they are known to the Kirghiz. The fact that the
chief cannot dispose of land was demonstrated to the German
government on the occasion of the Herero war. The Germans had
concluded agreements with the chiefs concerning the cession of
land, but in native eyes the chiefs did not have the right to dispose
of the land, and war was the result of this ignorance of tribal law.
Larger political alliances did not originally exist among the
individualized societies of herdsmen, especially not among the
camel and horse breeders. It is the concern of the involved parties
to get their right, especially in cases calling for blood revenge. The
custom of paying a ' composition ' or the paying of weregild to the
chief to make up for a committed crime (especially homicide) is not
an original feature of the herdsman cultures. Where it occurs,
secondary influences are responsible.
The most typical feature of the herdsman cultures is the develop-
ment of personal property and the accumulation of wealth in the
form of live stock. This favours the development of classes, and
results in a vertical type of social order in which the distinctions
between rich and poor become more and more pronounced. This
line of hierarchic development, however, reaches its fullest extent
only when it meets and merges with the cultural forms of the
agriculturists.
The law of inheritance in most of these tribes is that of primo-
geniture (exclusive inheritance by the first-born). Only under
Mohammedan influences do we find a certain degree of equality of
inheritance by the heirs.
In the Old World, especially in Asia and Africa, the societies of
3 o8
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
the herdsmen have brought about great political changes by their
creation of large states and empires. Their warlike * centrifugal '
or extrovert attitude, in contrast to the democratic * centripetal ' or
introvert tendencies of the agriculturists, has caused acculturations
and other changes of far-reaching historical consequences.
Only at the beginning of the
last century, all phases of a typical
invasion by herdsmen into the
tribal land of sedentary agricul-
turists were demonstrated by the
warring expeditions of the Fulbe
against Adamaua. The reason for
these invasions was of an econ-
omic nature : they looked for new
pastures for their zebus. Before
they became the attackers and
invaders the Fulbe lived among
the Negro tribes, merely tolerated
by them and often even op-
pressed. For a long time they
granted to the chieftains of the
agriculturists even the jus prim<%
noctis, the right to spend the first
night with a newly wedded bride.
But when the great Fulbe leader,
Scheu Usmanu, called his tribes-
men together to incite them to
* holy war ' against the agricultural
' heathens ' they rose to conquer. The result was the foundation
of the Sokoto empire between Niger and Shari.
This Fulbe conquest is about the only instance in recent times
which permits us to study the process of a meeting of herdsmen
with farming societies in all its phases and without European
influence. The Fulbe conquered Adamaua not as cattle herdsmen
but by their tactical superiority, through their armoured cavalry,
against which the farming tribes had no effective counter-measures.
After the submission of the * heathens/ the Fulbe made them
their tributaries and serfs, and divided all Adamaiia into a series of
despotically governed states which fully met the conception of
* state ' even from the point of view of modern sociology.
Such a state is headed by an emir or sultan, supported by a large
hierarchy of public servants, mostly recruited from the slaves. In
Adamaua there is a prime minister or kaigamma y a chief of the armed
BENIN WARRIOR *
Ivory Carving from an
Elephant Tusk,
Sixteenth Century
West Africa
Museum of Ethnology, Cologne
LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 309
forces known as ssdrriki n lefidda, and a master of the ceremonies,
ssaldmma. In addition to these, there is a multitude of lesser
officials. The country is divided into a number of provinces and
districts which are governed by vassals, each of whom is a lamido
of the sultan. In case of war, the lamido has to furnish troops and
has to flock with them to the ranks. He has to pay an annual
tribute to his ruler.
Even the ' minorities ' are represented at the court by their
own intermediaries and consuls,
the Galamida, who attend to the
negotiations between their groups
and the sultan.
The land was originally owned by
the sultan, who boosted his income
by sales and taxes, among which the
market toll, collected by the ssdrika
n kdsua, or bailiff of the markets,
was especially profitable.
Legal matters were handled by
the alkali, a professional judge
appointed by the sultan, with the
Koran, the usual Mohammedan
source of law, as his legal code.
Among the penalties were mutila-
tions and punishment by degradation or imprisonment. Murder
and the theft of slaves or horses as a second offence drew the death
penalty ; theft was punished by the chopping off of the offender's
right hand. The insolvent debtor was doomed to serfdom ; and
blood revenge was replaced by the payment of a fine, part of which
went to the sultan.
This sketch of the Fulbe empire furnishes a fairly typical
example of government among the peoples of the Sudan, from the
Ewe in the West to the Kafficho in the East. It is also representa-
tive of the structures of states created by the Mongols and the Huns.
An American example is the state of the Natchez. Their
' theocratic ' organization, with the ruler in the dual role of high
priest and king (his title was Great Sun), knew the same vertical
principle of social organization. The strictly organized class
structure knew slaves as its lowest caste, followed by the common
people, called Stinkards. These were ruled by the nobility, which
itself was divided into three ranks the Suns, the Nobles, and the
Honoured Men.
The law permitted no marriages within the same group, but only
DJUR WARRIOR
Africa
After Bernatzik
310 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
from one into another. Thus the Suns, even the king and his
sister, could choose their mates only from the ranks of the Stinkards.
In general, the children belonged to their mother's class, but when
a nobleman married a daughter of the people their children belonged
to the nobility.
Advancement into a higher class was possible through bravery in
war or through specially prescribed, often cruel, religious services
rendered to the king and therewith to the state. By these means a
Stinkard could become an Honoured Man and an Honoured Man
a Noble but only personal nobility could thus be acquired, as the
children did not inherit it. The position of a war chief was open
only to the Nobles and to the Suns.
Even in this type of society the old dislike of any absolutism
embodied in one single individual, the person of the king a
characteristic attitude of all Indian tribes created the restrictive
measure that in vital matters of peace and war an elected council
of old chieftains and warriors made their decisions independently
from the ruler. The final decision rested with them, not with the
king. The classes had to pay tribute to the king, who also was,
though with certain limitations, the overlord who controlled the
territorial rights.
These last examples indicate the development towards the well-
known constitutional and legal structures of the high cultures.
Here the whole impact of legal procedure cases, rules, norms, etc.
was written down and recorded for the benefit of the population
and of future generations. However, not the law cases and the
legal ways of peoples with written history reveal best the history
of the origin of legal institutions, but the law- ways of the relatively
oldest peoples on this earth.
Are we justified in speaking of law and legal norms even with
reference to the most ancient primitive tribes in the earliest stages
of civilization ?
Indeed we are, because there is no chaos, but law and order.
The rules of law permeate the whole life of the community. The
pressure from outside and public opinion within the society are the
strongest regulating factors. The ownership of land originally is
collective, and belongs to the local group ; -only the usufruct is
sometimes allotted to a group of families or to a single family. The
cultivation of land in itself does not create ownership. Even in
the empires of the Sudan and of Ethiopia, where the land
belonged to the king, land was not private property in our sense,
for the king-priest was at once a demigod and an individual who
was killed if the welfare of the people demanded it. The land
LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 31!
belonged to him only in his capacity as personification of the state.
Food also was originally collective property. Connected with this
is the collective responsibility of the group for the individual's
food supply.
The development of private property shows definite beginnings
among the harvesters, who are also characterized by their stronger
development of * copyright J law and of inter-tribal law. The right
of asylum is found among the harvesters, herdsmen, and Polynesians,
and its further development may be traced to the Greek and
Mexican temples. The differentiation of classes has been most
strongly developed among the herdsmen and the Polynesians.
This much, however, should be clear : that among aborigines
very close relations exist between government and land ; that
the land belongs to the clan, the tribe, or the people, but not to the
individual ; and that also with regard to the provision of food the
community bears the responsibility for a well-working system of
social security.
Among the primitives it is not the individual who is eternal, but
the people, the land, the law.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Magic and the Powers of the Unknown
THE WORLD OF primitive man is a world of magic. In the
beginning there was power. This wonderful power is omni-
present, and its existence is as certain as the hardness of stone and
the wetness of water, as all-pervading as the ether in modern physics.
This power, supernatural only
to modern man, but completely
real and natural to the primi-
tives, is known to them by many
different names. To the Malayo-
Polynesians it is mana\ among
the Iroquois Indians it is orenda\
among the Sioux, wakan\ among
|f. /* the Algonquians, manitou. To
recognize the workings of this
power, to have part in it, to use
Ij-Cl it, and to master it these are
the aims of primitive man. In
his world there are no coinci-
y dences everything has its causes
'-" and associations ; to discover
It these is the task of man.
In our minds the relationship
!" between cause and effect is the
i result of our logical thinking,
MAGIC MASK AGAINST THE PLAGUE based especially on our experi-
Liberia ences in the natural sciences. In
Museum of Ethnology, Cologne the minds of primitive men cause
J and effect are not restricted to
the small domain of the physical world, but they are associated
with the powers and phenomena beyond the visible world. To
the primitive this all-pervading power is completely natural,
because to his way of thinking the supernatural is a concrete
reality. What we would call a phenomenon of faith is to him a
manifestation of knowledge. All his actions and thoughts are
guided by this magic conception of the association and inter -
related participation of all things and elements of the visible and
the invisible worlds. The effort to influence and utilize these
mystical powers is called magic.
312
MAGIC AND THE POWERS OF THE UNKNOWN 313
Belief in the forces of magic not only is distributed all over the
world and constitutes the oldest form of a philosophy of life and of
religion, it has also survived the millenniums and exists even in our
time. To the primitive, each thing be it animate or inanimate
possesses certain magic powers and qualities. While we know that
similar causes will, under equal conditions, result in similar effects,
primitive man does not recognize the eternal laws of nature. For
this reason he attributes such phenomena as are without visibly
evident causes, like illness, death, success, bad luck, rain, storm, and
the rising of the sun, to certain magic powers inherent in all things.
Among the oldest forms of magic are those which deal with the
obtaining of food. But the individual does not alone take part in
the magic ritual : the whole group of hunters who, among the
oldest acquisitive tribes, are the economic unit, combine their
magic powers in one mighty ceremony. The caves of prehistoric
man furnish evidence of such magic performances. The picture
of the prey the bear, the buffalo, the deer was identical with the
living animal itself in the mind of prehistoric man. When he
pierced the image with his spear the success of the coming hunt
was guaranteed. The Australians of to-day substitute for the
ochre paintings of prehistoric man their sand drawings of the prey
animals which are speared by the participants in the ceremony to
safeguard the success of the next day's hunt.
The same magic result is attained when the symbolic image is
replaced by symbolic gestures. In this case the magic ritual does
not consist in the drawing and spearing of the game animal but in
its pantomimic imitation. Such magico-realistic dances, which
imitate the behaviour of the prey, are customary with the Australians
and with many North American Indian tribes. A derivation of
both methods is the manufacture by the medicine-man of a grass
or cloth image of the animal, to be hung up in his hut, where it is
shot or speared.
Similar magic performances serve to safeguard and increase the
principal food plants of the tribe. In Australia the gathering of
fruits and tubers is pantomimically imitated. Stones which play
the role of the desired root are dug up and symbolically tucked away
in the gathering basket. In the white world these magic rites have
survived in the erection of the may-pole, although its original
significance has deteriorated during the course of history. In some
regions a young tree, preferably birch or fir, is ceremoniously
brought in from the woods during Whitsuntide. Occasionally a
young man, covered with leaves and flowers from head to toe, plays
the part of the tree. In these celebrations the magic effect is no
314 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
longer evoked for one or a few specified plants the may-pole and
its variations have become the symbol of all growth, dedicated to
the worship of the old fertility demon.
Not only animals and plants, but also the forces of nature are
subjects of magic performances. The rising of the sun, the falling
of the rain, are encouraged by symbolic actions, inspired by the
belief that human neglect in this respect would cause the cessation
of their beneficial effects. The sun would no longer shine, the
rain no longer fall, if man in his tireless efforts did not force them
to do their work.
Most prominent among these magic performances are those in
which fire represents the symbolic element that invigorates the
strength of the sun. Especially during the time of the declining
year, when the winter solstice approaches, the sun is imagined as
being tired, and is encouraged by magic flaming pyres.
Such ceremonies, as for instance among the Navaho Indians, are
of impressive beauty. When night has fallen a gigantic pile in the
middle of a pine-hedged clearing is lit and kept aflame until the
break of dawn. The celebrants appear, their hair falling to their
shoulders, their faces and bodies painted with white clay in imitation
of the white colour of the sun. These imitators are the ' wandering
suns.' Feather- trimmed dancing sticks in their hands, they leap
towards the pyre to dance in closed procession around the flames.
Imitating the course of the sun, they move from east to west and
back. Although the glowing heat of the fire is by now almost
prohibitive, the dancers try to approach as closely as possible, to
set on fire the feather balls at the tips of their staffs. When one
succeeds and the little ball has burned down he immediately replaces
it by a new feather ring held in readiness the symbol of the new
sun and shouts of joy echo all round.
The climax of the ceremony is the symbolic imitation of the
sunrise. It begins with the appearance of sixteen men who carry
in a basket the image of the sun. Assembling round a tall pole,
they sing and dance. Suddenly they move backwards while,
slowly and majestically, the image is hoisted on the pole and dwells
on its top for a few impressive minutes, after which it sinks back
and disappears again.
The approach of dawn terminates the ceremony. The white-
painted dancers reappear to light a piece of cedar bark in the
now smouldering fire, to fight for it in a mock dance, and to leap
over the dying flames. The pine hedge surrounding the cere-
monial place had only one entrance in the beginning to the
east, whence the sun arrives. When the real sun starts its journey
MAGIC AND THE POWERS OF THE UNKNOWN
315
in the sky openings are made in the east, west, south, and north
to indicate that the sun sends out its rays in all directions.
The picture of the * sun ' in the middle of a clearing and of
the four entrances of the hedge appear on many objects of Indian
art, and the Mexican fire-god is addressed as ' master of the four
directions." When the four lines of this drawn symbol are led
to the centre of the sun ball the resulting ornament is a cross ;
and the multi-shaped
crosses so frequent in
the decorative art of
the North American
Indians are nothing
more than symbolic
drawings of the sun.
Similar ceremonies,
though not always so
elaborate, are held by
many other primitive
tribes. On dreary,
overcast mornings the
South African Bechuana
decide to invite the
sun to penetrate the
clouds. The chieftain
of the sun clan lights a
new fire in his home,
and every individual EASTER CELEBRATION OF THE QUICHE
tribesman comes to take INDIANS
one glowing ember into Guatemala
his own hut. Museum of Ethnology , Cologne
All fire cults originate
in sun worship, however their individual forms may vary, as among
the Hindus, the Parsee, the ancient Mexicans, and elsewhere.
The fire is always the representative of the sun.
Of no less importance are the manifold forms of rain magic,
since the blessings of the rain are as important for the vegetation
as those of the sun. An imitation of the rain always stands in
the centre of these ceremonies. Water is poured on the soil
or, as in some places in Australia, even blood, which drips from
an opened vein. Strewn-about down feathers symbolize the
clouds. Occasionally small quartz crystals are thrown over the
women, who protect themselves from the ' rain ' with pieces
of bark. Agricultural tribes in times of drought spill water over
316 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
their plantations or twirl water in an ' inviting ' way to induce
the rain to join in.
The magic relationship exists not only between a thing and
its analogous imitation equally mystical is the connexion between
a thing and its name. Even philosophers like Plato and Aristotle
believed that the name of a thing is contained in it like an
invisible kernel and that the name determines its very nature.
Only during the last two thousand years have the Middle
European peoples developed the idea that words are mere symbols
for the objects they designate and that the things exist independently
from the names by which we describe them. The older a culture,
the stronger is the idea that a thing and its name are almost one,
and this belief is the origin of the magic formula and the magic
word or exclamation. Often the pantomimic imitation of the
desired being or object is blended with the magic of words or names,
and some Australian tribes ' fortify * their fertility dances by
ceremoniously pronouncing the names of their prey animals.
While these magic performances relating to food and the forces
of nature like sun and rain are of a challenging and positive nature,
another type of magic which deals with the influencing of human
beings is often of a more or less negative kind. The probable
origin of the magic directed towards a person is the instinctive
gesture of emotion. Even we may unconsciously clench our
fist when we think of an enemy who is absent or whom convention
forbids us to call to account. The same emotional reaction came
to primitive man, who, carrying his weapons almost constantly,
instinctively made certain symbolic gestures of threat with them.
If, by chance, the enemy was stricken with illness or died shortly
afterwards it appeared logical to assume that the initial gesture
was the cause of the desired effect. Once such a causative relation-
ship was established it led to the conviction that a threatening
gesture necessarily caused the hated man's illness or death. The
gesture consequently developed into a consciously applied magic
action which was bound to bring about the destruction of the
hated individual. The technique of * personal magic ' is founded
on this conviction.
The Orang Benua of the Malaccan Peninsula believe that
certain wizards of their ranks have the power to kill an enemy
at long distance by simply holding a dagger or some other weapon
in the direction of his home. Certain Australian aborigines
throw magic arrows fashioned from human bones in the direction
of the prospective victim. They believe that such an arrow
flies on until it reaches the doomed man, whose body it penetrates
MAGIC AND THE POWERS OF THE UNKNOWN 317
without leaving visible injury, resulting in sudden illness and
possibly death. Other tribes use for the same purpose a miniature
spear, which is thrown in the darkness while the magician deeply
inhales and exhales. Finally, only a pointed bone or piece of wood
is used as the magic tool, over which magic words are sung or
murmured.
The frightful fact is that a man who knows himself the victim
of such witchcraft often actually dies from it, because his belief
in the effectiveness of the performance is as strong as that of his
destroyers. When, in Australia, a native finds among his belong-
ings a strangely shaped pointed bone whose significance is
unmistakable he suffers such a violent emotional shock that he
begins to ail, refuses to accept food, and sometimes succumbs to
the strain. Powers stronger than he and even his enemies have
spoken ; he is doomed to die.
All such magic illnesses, they believe, are caused by an alien
object, such as bone, wood, stone, or the like, and it is the task
of the medicine- man to remove the foreign substance from the
body of the victim if the latter is to survive. He does this by
sucking, squeezing, singing, and other such actions, and all skilful
wizards have their own private secrets of how to produce the
visible evidence.
This oldest type of personal magic has produced a great variety
of younger forms which all draw their magic effectiveness from
some act of analogy. Minute details of the desired sufferings
of the victims are acted out to make sure that they will be so
stricken.
When, in Kamchatka, a thief cannot be identified animal sinews
are thrown into the fire. It is assumed that the corresponding
sinews in the body of the criminal will pucker up painfully to
betray him. In some regions of Europe a jilted girl pierces at
midnight the picture of her unfaithful lover with a pin or pierces
a candle standing next to the picture, saying the words : " I
pierce the light, I pierce the heart I love," whereupon she believes
that the betrayer of her love is bound to die.
Intestinal pains are often ascribed to the doings of demons
who tie knots in the bowels. No wonder, therefore, that the
Lapps do not want * demon-inviting ' knots in any part of their
clothing. The idea that witches cause pains by tying knots in
parts of the human body still prevails in some rural regions of
Germany.
In Arabia a guilty criminal is identified by a magic performance of
analogy. A medicine-man assembles the entire village population
318 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
around him in a circle. All sit down while he drives a huge
nail into the soil, singing and murmuring mystical formulas.
In the end he says, " Rise ! " and all stand up. Only one cannot
move his limbs and remains bound to the ground the criminal,
whose own belief in the infallibility of the probe makes it effective.
The idea of the so-called * tree of life ' is another instance of
analogous personal magic. In this case the destiny of a human
being is tied to that of a freshly planted or chosen tree, and
whatever happens to the tree will befall its human counterpart.
But symbolic magic actions may be used not only to bewitch
a person, they may also serve to lift the spell cast by hostile
influences or as a preventive precaution.
Some European villagers treat a thigh fracture by putting a
broken leg of a chair in splints. Many * purification ' ceremonies
are for the purpose of removing morbific agents from a human
body. Ailing people, especially rheumatics, squeeze themselves
through the narrow space between two columns in the mosque
of Kairouan in Tunisia to * rid ' themselves of their pains by
rubbing them off. The Japanese during their festivals of puri-
fication jump through hoops of woven grass to protect themselves
from diseases, and the Kamchatkans crawl through wooden rings
to purify their bodies and their souls alike. The Christian
ceremony of baptism purifies preventively the soul of the new
member of the Church.
The drawn image of the prey animal, so often the centre of
magic hunting ceremonies in the earliest cultures, has its later
equivalent in the picture of an individual at whom an act of
analogous magic is aimed. The picture of a part of a person or
of a thing may be likewise used for magic purposes. Whatever
happens to the picture will also happen to its real counterpart.
The action of the girl who symbolically pierces a candle to
' kill ' her unfaithful lover follows a similar belief. Her magic
would be a genuine example of * effigy magic ' if she would substi-
tute a waxen heart for the candle. Magic actions with the help
of an effigy are known all over the earth. On the Malaccan
Peninsula small human effigies are formed from beeswax to cast an
evil spell over their ' originals.' When an eye of the little figure
is pierced blindness will befall the victim ; piercing the head
causes head ailments ; piercing of the waist-line will result in
stomach ulcers, and so forth. If death is the desired result the
effigy must be pierced from head to toe, and must be treated in
all details as though it were the body of a deceased person.
Some American Indians melt down a waxen image to ' kill '
MAGIC AND THE POWERS OF THE UNKNOWN
319
the person in whose likeness it was shaped, or they burn a straw
doll representing the victim. The Malays * cause ' marital trouble
by tying the figures of a man and his wife together, back to back,
so that they * look away from each other/
Effigy magic of this type is by no means restricted to primi-
tive cultures alone. It was practised
in historic times, and has lived
on even in our day. The Romans
considered it the logical means of
getting rid of an enemy. After
shaping his likeness in wax or lead,
they destroyed the effigy, murmuring
magic formulas to kill the victim.
The mediaeval custom of hanging a
person in effigy still lives on in our
time. Even in modern Styria a waxen
doll bewitched with the help of mys-
terious words is pierced with a needle
in the region of its * heart ' to cause
the illness or death of the original.
Rural people in northern England
still believe the story of the woman
who began to ail until she was a
mere bundle of skin and bones. No
physician could help her, but when
she turned to the miraculous village
quack he told her to look for objects
that might bring her bad luck. She
finally found a sheep's heart, com-
pletely pierced with pins. After
destroying it, she got well again. The sheep's heart had been
used as a magic substitute for her own heart.
Corresponding to the active effigy magic, the preventive magic
with the help of symbolic pictures or objects has developed.
Just as the picture of a person or his heart may be used to injure
the corresponding parts of the living body, similar facsimiles
may serve to chase the cause of sickness away. In regions where
an evil spirit is supposed to have entered a human body, to strike
him with an ailment, a figure of this spirit often in the shape
of an animal is stabbed or shot. The practice of chasing away
a scapegoat, as we know it from the Bible, originates in the ancient
' healing ' method of chasing away the demon that caused the
disease. Only after the development of the conception of * sin/
DOLLS USED FOR MAGIC
Zulu, South Africa
Museum of Ethnology,
Cologne
32O THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
the scapegoat became the medium through which a family or a
people was ridded from guilt. On their Day of Atonement the
Jews burdened a goat or a bird with all the sins of their people to
chase it into the desert. The Badaga of India ' load ' a young
steer at a funeral with all the sins of the departed, and drive him
away with much noise.
Where ailments are understood as a punishment inflicted by
the gods, a picture of the sick person or of the sick part of his
body is dedicated to the divine power in the hope that fie may take
away the curse. The votive sacrifices of the Catholics originate
in this belief. Whole figures of all kinds of materials are dedicated
to the saints, or hearts, legs, feet, arms, and the like are laid on
the altar to cure the limbs and inner organs of the sick. Heinrich
Heine has described this pious faith in his poem " The Pilgrimage
to Ke velar " :
Who sacrifices a waxen hand,
Will cure his manual wound
Who gives the Saints a waxen foot
Will heal his ailing limb.
In Bavaria life-sized heads are shaped from burnt clay by the
sufferers from chronic head diseases. Filled with barley, they
are hung up in trees passed by a holy procession. In miraculous
places like Lourdes the crutches and the braces of the healed
fill, as gifts of gratitude, whole chapels, and in the beautiful church
of Notre Dame de la Garde, which towers over the harbour of
Marseilles, hundreds of ship models dangle from the arches the
votive gifts of captains whose ships were saved by the Madonna
in a storm or who wish to protect their vessels by magic means
before they sail on a long trip.
A variety of this pictorial magic is the belief that the shadow
of a living being is a part of him or even his soul. If an alligator
* catches ' the shadow of a Basuto Negro he must die. On the
Solomon Islands a man who steps on the shadow of the king
is punished by death ; and in the Malayan archipelago the piercing
of a man's shadow causes his illness. An ancient Swabian law
granted satisfaction to a freeman who had been insulted by a serf
by ceremoniously hitting the shadow of the offender in the neck.
The widespread reluctance to have one's picture painted or
one's photograph taken goes back to the same root. Many primi-
tives believe that the man who owns the portrait of another man
has thereby magic powers over him, and in the Casbah of Algiers
it is still to-day a hazardous endeavour to photograph the picturesque
surroundings and their inhabitants. The artist Kane, who painted
MAGIC AND THE POWERS OF THE UNKNOWN 321
an Indian chieftain, was afterwards solemnly questioned whether
he had not planted the seed of the chieftain's possible illness,
and when his model was finally consoled with a gift of tobacco
he remarked that this was too small a gift for having risked his
life. The harassed painter finally made a copy of the picture,
which he publicly destroyed as the alleged original, to appease the
feelings of the worried tribe.
In the belief that the portraying of an individual would do
harm to his soul, Mohammed forbade all pictorial representations
of human beings. For this reason his mosques have remained
pictureless up to the present day.
The name of a person has the same magic qualities as his
shadow or picture. The citation of spirits, demons, or deceased
persons is often accomplished by the mere pronunciation of their
names, often in repetition, as in Faust : " You have to say it
thrice." The fear that the knowledge of a person's name might
expose him to acts of magic revenge has led certain Australian
tribes to the custom of giving names only to children who are
too young to have enemies. As soon as they reach puberty the
individual name is dropped and they are merely referred to as
father, brother, uncle, and so forth.
In Gippsland, a south-eastern region of Australia, personal
names were a strictly guarded tribal secret, so that no outsider
could harm their bearers by evil magic. Most American Indians
refrain from mentioning names, and merely move their lips in
the direction of the person they speak about. Sometimes a nick-
name is substituted for the real one, to protect its bearer a
custom very frequent among our own modern criminals. In
Abyssinia no wizard has power over a person whose real name
he does not know. To many tribes the mere mentioning of
their chieftain's or ruler's name is taboo, and in Borneo the name
of a sick child is changed to give it a new lease of life with a new
name.
Closely related to the name-magic is the word-magic in general.
The threatening gesture towards an absent enemy is often
intensified by a spoken curse, or by the words " You shall die,"
or " I kill you ! " When the symbolic action is dropped altogether
and the verbal threat exclusively is substituted for it the power
of the word- magic appears in its strongest form.
All solemn declarations, oaths, and curses go back to this root,
and even our courts of law add the " So help me God ! " to the
testimony of a witness. The so-called ordeals have the same
origin : God or the supernatural shall decide in a public test
ii
322
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
whether or not a man spoke the truth and is or is not a criminal.
During an ordeal the guilty or innocent individual must hold
a dangerous object, eat or drink poison, or walk through fire,
to prove his alleged innocence. The outcome decides his fate.
Sometimes the * poison ' drunk at such occasions is in fact harmless,
and only the guilty conscience and the firm
belief of the tested in the miraculous qualities
of the liquid give him away. Where real poison
is used, vomiting is taken for a proof of guilt-
lessness ; the guilty criminal, unable to spit out
the deadly drink, must die.
The written name of a person may be used
in the same way as his picture or his spoken
name. To increase the magic powers over an
effigy to be bewitched, the Hindus write the
victim's name on the moulded figure ; and the
Balinese doom a man by writing his name on a
shroud or bier which they bury in his stead.
The name of a man, written on a piece of paper,
may be symbolically hanged or burnt to destroy
its bearer. A combination of the writing of holy
or unholy names with the use of magic objects
developed the amulet, the talisman, and the
good-luck charm. All over the Mohammedan
world we find the custom of carrying mystical
phrases, Koran quotations, and other written
symbols on scraps of paper in little bags used
as good-luck charms or talismans.
A native of Upper Guinea once displayed
proudly his magic amulet to a white explorer :
Ethnology, Cologne it was a piece of paper warning in German script
that its owner was the greatest rogue of the region.
To increase the power of the written word, the Mohammedans
sometimes dissolve the writing in water to drink it, or they drink
water from a metal bowl in which the magic word or sentence
is engraved. When the medical prescription cannot be quickly
obtained the Chinese doctor writes it down in ink which is dissolved
and drunk by the patient, or the prescription is burnt and the
ashes are eaten by the sick man. Among the Japanese it was
customary to write the words of a solemn oath on paper, burn it,
and eat the ashes. If the swearer was a liar the ashes would act
as a poison to kill him.
Other powerful magic contrivances consist of substances taken
MAGIC STAFF
Batak, Borneo
Museum of
MAGIC AND THE POWERS OF THE UNKNOWN
323
from a person to cast an evil spell over him. Such things as
nails, hair, saliva, and even shreds of garments, parts of weapons,
etc., are considered to be parts of the individual, part of his spirit
or soul, which can be dealt with as though they were the person
himself. The distribution of this custom is world-wide.
On the Moluccas one kills an enemy by collecting his discarded
betel plug, some of his hair, and a shred from his garment, and
distributing this mixture in three bamboo cylinders, one of which
is buried under a coffin, the second buried under the steps of the
FETISH POT
West Africa
Museum of Ethnology y
Cologne
AMULET, CARVED
FROM HIPPO-
POTAMUS TUSK
Manyema, Congo
Lindenmuseum, Stuttgart
victim's house, and the third thrown into the sea. This is supposed
to kill him unfailingly.
From this magic belief developed the custom of destroying
immediately all such possible tokens of witchcraft. If the Mua-
tajamwo, a mighty Central African ruler, spits, a slave immedi-
ately buries the evidence, flattens the soil over it, and makes the
spot indistinguishable. The South Sea chieftains are constantly
followed by an attendant carrying a spittoon whose contents are
secretly disposed of.
In southern Bohemia it is still regarded as dangerous to leave
dust or rubbish before the house because witches may learn from
it what is going on in the house and do their evil planning accord-
ingly. In Moravia cut-off hair must be burnt ; in old Scotland
discarded hair and nail parings were always burnt.
Since magic with discarded personal substances is considered
the cause of many ailments sick people try to buy back these
substances from the alleged wizard. On the New Hebrides the
324 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
medicine-men earn a comfortable living by collecting all kinds
of rubbish to sell back to its owners. On the island of Tana all
natives carry small baskets, in which they carefully collect their
scraps and destroy them by * drowning ' when they pass a current
of water. In Australia the Narrinyeri men try to get hold of
as many bones as possible from which other persons have eaten
the meat. In this way they gain power over the fate of their
fellow- tribesmen, and if one of them should become jan enemy
he can easily be dealt with by magic means.
The many believers in love-magic, which is practised all over
the world, often make similar use of belongings or bodily substances
of the beloved to force him or her to return the feelings of the
forsaken. Most often such substances are tied into a small bundle
and made even more effective by magic adjurations. How such
magic is performed, for instance among the Hopi Indians, has
been described by Beaglehole :
A man who ardently desires a certain girl steals some of her hair,
her saliva, a piece of her shawl, or some threads from her woven
belt. These objects, together with a prayer feather, he ties up in
a package. He prays that the girl will desire him, and puts the
package in his pocket or under his belt. The girl becomes " on
fire under her navel " and as* long as he carries the package she visits
him every night. This love-magic is dangerous. The girl and the
man may go mad with love and kill themselves. The bait objects
are disposed of by burial when the man becomes tired of the girl : he
makes a new package if he desires another mistress.
A quaint form of personal magic is the use of the tracks left
by a person in walking or sitting on the ground. Such tracks
may be dug out and dried in a container as the soil fades, so
also fades away the health of the victim. The Malayans shape
the soil of the tracks into figures, which they roast or ' kill.' This
type of magic is also used by lovers who want to force the objects
of their affections to return their feelings. Girls of the southern
Slavonic countries dig up the earth from the footprints of their
non-responsive sweethearts to plant a * fadeless J marigold in it.
Like the flower, her lover's affection will now bloom and never
fade.
The magic world-view is most strongly developed in the oldest
forms of human culture. Among the agriculturists it recedes
in favour of a strongly accentuated belief in the powers of the
dead and their souls, to reach a new height in the ancient high
cultures.
In our own civilization the atavistic faith in magic powers is
MAGIC AND THE POWERS OF THE UNKNOWN 325
still of marked prevalence, despite all modern scientific achieve-
ments. Especially in times of great danger and great emotional
stress, the world-view of the primitive captures a percentage
even of ' enlightened ' minds. During the Second World War
many soldiers in shell-holes and cockpits clung to the encourage-
ment provided by some kind of lucky charm or amulet. The type
of objects chosen for this purpose was closely related to the magic
contrivances cherished by primitive man.
Although we find even in the cultures of the hunters and food
gatherers a belief in the powers of the spirits of the dead and the
notion that the deceased continue to exist somehow and somewhere
this belief is not yet strong enough to shape the philosophy of these
cultures and to prevail over the purely magic element. This
occurs only in the cultures of the agriculturists. Their form
of economics and their settled form of life which permit no
physical and spiritual escape from ' hostile ' powers put the worship
of the dead into the centre of their world-view and of their entire
lives. To the primitive mind there is nothing natural in the
phenomenon of death. It is an event brought about by some kind
of magic. A mystical power, stronger than that of the deceased,
has succeeded in subduing him, and has robbed him of his capacity
to live.
Our term for this power of life wnich is present in the living
body and which leaves it at death is the soul. Although the con-
ceptions of its intrinsic properties and its location are among
primitive men heterogeneous indeed it may be identified with
a man's breath or bodily warmth, his heart, blood, brains, liver,
kidneys, his shadow or reflection it is always the something
which enables him to be alive. That this mysterious being, this
soul, is not inseparably connected with the body seems to be
proved by the phenomenon of the dream. What else could
dreams be but the adventures of the soul on its independent
excursions, while the body is asleep ? It is, therefore, taken for
granted that the soul has the capacity of existing outside the body.
The logical conclusion, then, is that at the moment of death
the soul leaves its body permanently. Wherever people believe
in a land of the souls, they often answer the question of the cause
of death with the assertion that the soul has grown tired of the
ways of the world and therefore has separated itself from it.
This, however, is a secondary interpretation. In the beginning,
only magic influences are believed responsible for the separation
of body and soul. These magic influences are the results of
witchcraft. They are crimes committed by others, and many
326
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
practices and customs have been developed to identify and to punish
the guilty sorcerer.
What, now, are the activities of this emancipated spirit or soul ?
Where does it go ? Very widespread is the belief that it dwells
in the shape of a shadow near the grave although often only for
a limited time or that it moves about within the tribal territory,
just as the living do. As a parallel conception we find, even in the
earliest cultures, as, for instance, among
the Central Australian tribes, the idea that
the souls move on to a clearly defined place
reserved for them. When a child is born
one of the old souls has left its refuge to
enter the body of the mother-to-be. When
the child grows up and later dies his soul
simply returns to the land of the spirits of
the dead whence it may or may not return
in further rebirths. This ancient belief in
a round of rebirths, found even among the
most primitive peoples, is the germ cell
of the conception of reincarnation which
reached its highest development in the
Indian high culture.
A variety of additional conceptions further
amplifies this old idea. When a man has
SKIN been killed by an alligator or tiger his soul
lives on in these animals. If he drowns he
transforms himself into an aquatic spirit ;
if a plant grows on his grave the soul of
the dead body beneath lives on in it.
- ~ , TT rf Worms that appear near the corpse, or
After Carl von Hoffmann t^n- u j a- u-j
butterflies, bugs, dragon-mes, birds, or,
especially, lizards and snakes, may be regarded as the new in-
corporations of the soul. The dying individual may even choose
the type of creature in which he desires to live on.
Very often a clear distinction is made between the status of the
soul before and after the burial of the body. As long as no funeral
has taken place, the soul remains near the body as a threatening
ghost, and may even appear to the living in many dreadful
disguises. In places where two successive burials are customary
the soul dwells near the body all the time until the final rites have
taken place. A person who for some reason received no formal
funeral at all will be condemned to a permanent existence as a
restless ghost who haunts the living. Only a final and orderly
MAGIC BUZZARD
WORN BY ZULU (NATAL,
SOUTH AFRICA) AS A
MEANS OF ACQUIRING
POWER AND INFLUENCE
MAGIC AND THE POWERS OF THE UNKNOWN 327
funeral delivers the soul, so to speak. The soul is now free to
travel to its home the land of the souls as the tribe in question
conceives it. Sometimes it is identical with the land from which
the ancestors came, and which, long ago abandoned by the
migrating tribe, nevertheless still is their home.
Often the location of the land of the souls is directly connected
with the course of the sun. The sun-god is the guide who leads
the souls of the departed to their new dwellings. On the Solomon
Islands they enter the ocean together with the setting sun. This
conception is closely related to the belief that the sun is born
while rising in the morning and dies in the evening. Because
there were no living beings on earth prior to the sun he was the
first to be born and the first to die. A Polynesian myth closes
with the thought that if Maui the sun-god had not died the humans
who came after him also would not have to die.
The sun sometimes may actually be the cause of death : the
sun-god spears the mortals from heaven with his rays and pulls
them up to his land. Or he catches them with the net of his
rays and kills them afterwards with his spear. If the sun is
imagined as a spider in its net of rays it is a sorceress who catches
the humans in this net to devour them. For this reason the
Mexican death gods are symbolized fc>y spiders. Where the sun-
god climbs on tows or ladders into the sky (symbolized by his
rays), the same path is followed by the souls on their travel to
their heavenly dwelling-place. This is the origin of the ladders
in Jacob's dream on which angels climb up and down angels
being the personified souls of the dead. In New Zealand vines
lead down to Havaiki, the land of the souls, and on the same
vines the souls of the ancestors once climbed up to earth. In
the old Congo Kingdom the sun priest was not allowed to die
an ordinary death, but had to hang himself on a rope up which
he could climb to the sun.
A bridge may lead to the sun, or a boat or canoe comes to
transport the souls of the deceased to the better land of the sun.
Charon, the Greek ferryman, whose boat brings the souls of the
dead to the nether world over the Styx, is of the same origin.
Not only bridges or boats may carry the souls to their new
domicile ; animals and, especially, birds may call for them to
guide them to the land of the dead. From this idea the conception
that the soul itself is equipped with wings has developed. Ancient
Egyptian representations show clearly the interjacent stage of
development in which the human figure and the forms of birds
are combined in one being. The falcon god Horus of ancient
3*8
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
Egypt is of a definitely solar character ; Horus was the typical
title of all kings of dynastic
and pre-dynastic times. Their
powers centred in the sun city,
Heliopolis, whose ruler the king
was known by the title of Har-
achte (" Horus who lives in the
horizon "), and the combination
of bird and sun indicated his
supernatural powers over men
and souls. In the Christian con-
ceptions the wings of the soul
bird have become the attribute
of the angels.
The sun itself may be pictured
as a bird. As an ancient re-
minder of this idea, we still tell small children that babies are
KOPPENSNELLEN
New Guinea
After Chalmers-Weule
ANCESTRAL FIGURES
Haiti
Indonesia
After V. Sydow
MAGIC AND THE POWERS OP THE UNKNOWN
329
brought by a stork and that he fetches them from a pond or lake.
In many ancient lands the sun rose from the waters, and the
stork, on account of his red legs, is believed to be connected with
fire and thereby with the sun.
Closely related to the different conceptions of the travels of
the soul are the many forms of primitive burials, all of which
originated either in the ancient fear of the
spirits of the dead or, as among the agricul-
turists, are influenced by the effort to make
fruitful use of the powers of the souls for
the benefit of the surviving community. By
noise or ruse the souls are tricked into the
abandonment of their * evil ' intentions, or
they are bribed with food and presents to
stay where they are and not to return to
the living. In later cultures this idea has
led to the custom of burying not only cloth-
ing, weapons, and ornaments with the dead,
but having them accompanied by the souls
of pets, riding and pack animals, and even
slaves and women killed in their honour
during the funeral ceremonies. As many
human beings as possible were killed to
please the departing soul, so that his spirit
would not feel lonely and would not desire
to bring suffering to the living.
Since all souls are believed to crave com-
pany it seemed wise to choose their fellow-
travellers in advance instead of leaving this
choice to them. To protect themselves After F. D. McCarthy
from this desire of the soul, some tribes
kill prisoners of war or strangers whom they treacherously over-
whelm. This is the origin of the ill-famed custom of the
Koppensnellen in the East Indian Archipelago. Koppensnellen
victims are unsuspecting honey-seekers or visitors to the water-
place, killed by insidious attack from ambush. All such actions
are inspired by the desire to satisfy the soul before it feels
any inclination to act. Since the closest relatives are most likely
to be the victims of the soul's thirst for revenge, and since
they may infect others with the contagious danger, they have to
live in seclusion for a certain period, after which they often have
to undergo a special ceremony of purification to make sure that
they are again completely free of the ' poison of death/
n*
TJURUNGA OR SACRED
STONE
Arunta,
Central Australia
330
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
Another preventive measure is not to mention the name of
the dead since, as previously observed, the pronunciation of their
names would cause their dreaded presence.
MAGIC TRIBAL BUNDLE OF THE PAWNEE
Oklahoma
After a photograph, American Museum of Natural History,
New York
The belief in the extremely strong power of the souls of the dead
developed from the fear of the dead, and has caused the living to
SACRED WANINGA OF THE
SPIDER TOTEM
Arunta, Central Australia
After F. D. McCarthy
FETISH FIGURE
Western Congo
Museum of Ethnology,
Cologne
MAGIC AND THE POWERS OF THE UNKNOWN
33 1
desire to benefit from this power, just as from other powers of nature.
This could be achieved by keeping the souls of the departed as
closely by as possible, yet at a prescribed spot. The images of
ancestors serve this purpose.
In Central Australia certain flat-shaped pieces of wood or flat
stones that represent the soul of a man or woman are prepared
for him immediately after his birth. Each native has his own
soul- wood or soul-stone, known by the name of tjurunga. Although
the spirit of the dead itself returns to another
place, the tjurunga maintains some of his
individual soul substance. For this reason
the survivors collect these objects from their
ancestors up to the recently deceased and
regard them as their most sacred possessions.
Whole collections of such ancestral soul-
stones are hidden away within the tribal
regions to serve during holy ceremonies when
all their powers are combined to * help '
during the initiation ceremonies or to obtain
an increase of the food supplies. Objects
of similar significance are the nurtanjas and
waningas of Northern or Central Mistralia,
respectively. They are structures of spears ANCESTRAL SKULL IN
tied together with human hair and covered WOODEN 'KORWAR'
with red-and- white feather down, on whose
tops some tjurungas are suspended for cere-
monial purposes.
From these soul-woods and soul-stones the ancestral images
of the agriculturists developed, a variety of which is the well-known
fetish figures. These images of the ancestors are, however, not
made during the lifetime or at the birth of an individual, but only
after his death. They are not identical with the soul of a living
person, but contain his other, his ' death soul.' During the course
of development they then assume, besides their religious and
magic significance, the meaning of mere tokens of remembrance.
Besides the man-made ancestral images, the skulls and the bones of
the dead person are worshipped as objects containing ' soul power/
and occasionally both types of fetishism appear in combination.
Since the skull is often considered the seat of the soul it is only
logical to procure and to preserve it, especially if it belonged to
an outstanding individual like a priest or a chieftain. Skull
worship is not restricted to the ancestral skulls alone, but is extended
even to any obtainable skull, whether from friend or enemy.
Dutch New Guinea
After O. Nuoffer
332
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
From the worship of the dead and the cult of the skulls the
mask cult, with its dances and performances, has developed. The
carved mask now symbolizes the soul, the spirit, or the magic
demon. But not man alone possesses such powerful soul sub-
stances. In the world-view of the so-called animism, plants and
*%
FETISH SCEPTRE
Urua, Southern Congo
SYMBOL OF THE GOD
OF LIGHTNING
Togo
Museum of Ethnology, Cologne
animals, celestial bodies, hills, and rivers are all endowed by
primitive man with souls and spirits equal to his own. Many an
African native who sets out to fell a tree pours some palm-oil
on the soil after the first blow so that the enraged tree-soul is led
away from the ' attacker/ who thereby escapes its revenge. The
general custom of the North American Indians of begging the
killed prey animal for its pardon originates in the same belief.
The Eskimos explain their attitude towards the spirit of the
MAGIC AND THE POWERS OF THE UNKNOWN 333
killed animal in elaborate detail. They believe that seals and
whales who live in the salt water suffer from continuous thirst
and that they only allow themselves to be killed because the
hunter offers them a drink of fresh water in return. If he ever
neglects the ritual of pouring a dipperful of water in their mouths
after they have been killed all the other seals will know this
immediately, and will not give this unreliable hunter the oppor-
tunity to kill them. Polar bears who are not thirsty because
they can lick the snow are, however, eager to obtain man's tools,
like crooked knives or bow drills, if they are males. Female bears
desire women's knives, skin-scrapers, and bone needles. Stefansson
says :
Consequently, when a polar bear has been killed his soul accom-
panies the skin into the man's house and stays with the skin for
several days. The skin during this time is hung up at the rear end
of the house, and with the skin are hung up the tools which the
bear desires, according to the sex of the animal killed. At the end
of the fourth or fifth day the soul of the bear is by a magic formula
driven out of the house ; and when it goes away it takes away with
it the souls of the tools which have been suspended with it, and
uses them thereafter.
Eskimo hunters and their wives have to be very careful to do
justice to the souls of the killed animals in this way. If they are
neglectful their reputation not only among the animals (who
will henceforth shun their attempts at killing), but also among
the humans, will severely suffer. " Certain women are known in
their communities for this very undesirable quality, and if a
woman becomes a widow her reputation for carelessness in treating
the souls of animals may prevent her from getting a second
husband/'
As this belief in the ' souls of the tools ' shows, even inanimate
objects are, in the animistic world- view, equipped with souls,
and certain artisans who manufacture them, especially smiths and
wood carvers, are mysterious and, occasionally, dangerous persons
who may influence the souls of whatever objects they shape.
Even good and bad character qualities are traced back to
different spirits dwelling in a human mind, and the sickness
demons, developed from the spirits of the dead, run loose every-
where. They take the forms of elves and goblins, and they are
fought or flattered by the same means as are considered effective
in dealing with the spirits of the dead.
From all these examples we see that the world of primitive
334 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
man abounds with invisible spirits and beings which may be
the friends or enemies of the living. They all require special
attention so that they may be kindly inclined, and their future
will may be read and interpreted by the enlightened. The flight
of the birds, the currents of the water, the entrails of animals,
the way in which a thrown stick falls or an oracle animal moves,
can betray the will of the silent and yet so powerful spirits, so
that man can direct his actions accordingly. From the belief in
such premonitory signs the games with dice and car ds* have de-
veloped ; and the * reading of the future ' with the help of cards
or tea-leaves goes back to these very ancient conceptions.
The belief in the powers of the souls and the earliest forms of
mythology the analogous shaping of the great powers of nature
including heaven and earth after the patterns of the experiences
of primitive man has finally found its highest expression in
the belief that supernatural beings exist who are superior to man.
The multitude of gods who are throned above the mortals, many
of them distinguished by specific functions and qualities, still
show in almost every instance the traces of their development
from conceptions of earlier cultures.
Many of the outstanding gods of the ancient high cultures
maintained in their appearance certain animal attributes. The
Egyptian hierarchy of gods, especially, furnishes striking examples.
The sun-god Horus, with the sparrow-hawk's head, was the
master of the flame-spitting snake, the stroke of lightning, with
whose help he destroyed his enemies. Toth, the moon-god, had
the head of an ibis ; Anubis, the god of the dead, was snake-
headed. Often the animal character of the deity is merely main-
tained in his riding mount, while he himself attains the human
form. The Indian god Siva, once an old sun-god conceived as
a steer, rides now, as a human-shaped figure, a reddish-brown
bull. It is Siva who, as the sun-god, frees the cattle (light) from
the stable of the night.
The dance as the oldest form of religious worship has likewise
been adopted by many high cultures as a characteristic of the
gods. All Mexican gods dance ; they are pictured with bells
on their feet, and musicians are their constant companions.
The relationship of prayer especially of the fixed, formulatory
variety to the ancient magic formula is evident. In Tibetan
Lamaism, the belief in the effectiveness of magic repetition
has led to the use of regular prayer- mills which mechanize the
holy formula of the Om mani padme hum for the benefit of the
pious. The interesting characteristic of such prayer formulas is
MAGIC AND THE POWERS OF THE UNKNOWN
335
the fact that the words used stand in no direct relationship to the
wishes of the praying individual, who obviously believes that the
formula arouses the attention of the god who, once called in,
automatically takes care of the needs of his follower. The Tibetan
prayer-mills contain slips of paper on which the holy words have
been written. By a simple
turn of the attached crank,
the prayer counts as 'spoken'
and can in this way be effort-
lessly repeated a thousand
and more times . This gadget
stands on the same level as
the primitive dance rattle,
and is only a combination of
it with the ancient ' magic
sing-song,' Such prayer -
mills have assumed gigantic
dimensions. Specimens in
Japan can be moved only by
a group of ' prayers J ; and
some huge prayer-mills are
driven by water or wind
power.
Informal prayers expressed
in the manner of a simple
demand are equally old.
They have been and often
still are accompanied by gifts
to the spirits or gods to
win their friendly inclination.
The most ancient concep-
tion of the deity is that of
an incalculable being who, however, can be appeased or influenced
by gifts, sacrifices, or vows. Neglect in making such offerings
causes the wrath of the gods. It is up to man to create a friendly
relationship between himself and those beyond his visible world.
Nobler conceptions in our sense enter the realm of religion with
the introduction of ethical yard-sticks and ethical evaluations.
In the different paradises of mankind the tree of knowledge is
the same, only its fruits are of different kinds. The conceptions
of ' good ' and ' bad ' are no absolute values : they vary within
the different cultures. The * knowledge,' however, is stable in so
far as it determines what is good or bad according to the customs
THE HOLY TIBETAN PRAYER
Om Mani Padme Hum
In different Scripts
After Forstmann
336 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
of the peoples concerned. And God or the gods supervise the
observance of the code of morals. The nature of these morals
changes from tribe to tribe, from people to people, and is subject
to historic development.
Higher cultures have extended the influences of the Deity
beyond death, when He distributes, as a matter of justice, reward
or punishment in accordance with an individual's ethical behaviour
on earth. Only one additional element surpasses even this con-
ception of God : the idea of the forgiving love ascribed to God by
the Christian religion.
Primitive man created his gods in his own image. Often they
are endowed with human desires and passions, besides having
powers which man does not possess. The belief in these powers
is founded on faith, just as in the great world religions. This
faith led to the belief that the gods created man.
The teachings of the missionaries have partly substituted for
or replaced the old powers of magic and the old gods, but unless
the whole primitive culture of the tribes in question had been
utterly destroyed only such teachings and conceptions of Christianity
could be absorbed as fitted into the general world-view of the
tribe. In spite of continuous missionary work among primitives,
the outcome of the white i/ian's endeavours was only too often
merely a mixed primitive- Christian religion of which the festivals
taking place during the Semana Santa, the Holy Week of the Latin
American Indian tribes, are a good example, for here the blending
of the new Christian beliefs with the old magic myths becomes
evident in unmistakable frankness.
Only such beliefs and gods and faiths as somehow already
were parts of their own world were and could be accepted by the
minds of primitive worshippers. Again, it was man who created
his gods.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Each Thing has its Story
EVEN IN THE loneliest wilderness primitive man is surrounded
by many heterogeneous spirits whose good or evil forces
stand in direct relation to his activities, hopes, and destinies.
His neighbours the animals, his friends the plants, his ancestors
the stars, his gods who dwell in the sun, in the moon, in the
volcanoes, and in the rivers, are around him at all times, and his
continuous intercourse with the
spiritual forces emanating from
them makes his life an exciting
experience, marked by never-
ending adventures.
Unable to write down this
wealth of adventure in holy or
worldly books for the genera-
tions to come, he relieves his
soul by the medium of the
spoken word, which assumes
in his environment an import-
ance far greater than spoken
utterances in the civilized
world. The nightly gatherings
in the huts, the camp-fires, and
the community houses become
the centres of spiritual exchange
of an intensity that surpasses the realm of mere entertainment,
because here the ancient traditions are related to future generations
in narratives which they, in turn, will remember and pass on for
the sake of their children and grandchildren.
Not without reason, the ancient tales are often begun or termi-
nated with the phrase, " That is how it came upon us," or, " The
old ones told it this way." The myths of primitive peoples are
their Bible and their history book, their codes of etiquette and
their thesauri, their treasure chests filled with ancient wisdom,
shrewd psychology, and, last but not least, laughter and wit.
They all have one thing in common : they are ' non-fictional/ and,
fantastic as some of them may sound to our ears, they are the
factual truth to those who tell them and to all who listen to them.
The mythology shaped and preserved by the minds of the
337
'THE MAN IN THE MOON'
Haida Indian Drawing
338 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
peoples without written history is an ocean filled with pearls
and those we have lifted from its depths are a mere fraction of
its wealth.
The principal characteristic of the myths of primitive peoples
is that they make no marked distinction between the human
being and his natural surroundings that man and plants and
animals, the phenomena of nature, the celestial bodies, the
legendary heroes, and the gods, all act on an equal basis and under
circumstances fashioned after the patterns of life of the tribes
concerned. Ignorant of the physical and psychological structure
of the things and beings outside himself, primitive man takes
his own inner self as the yard-stick of their nature and attitude,
and transposes naively his own feelings and habits to the ' feelings '
and * habits ' even of things which, according to our conceptions,
are inanimate. Material objects, the powers of nature, and plants
and animals all think and act like man, and this is one reason
why the tales and myths of the peoples without written history
are so colourful, so fascinating, and so picturesque.
The ' elders ' of the animal tribes sit together in council meetings,
smoking the ceremonial pipe and discussing their problems
solemnly for the sake of the animal kingdom ; the dog owns a
plantation just as his agricultural human brethren do ; the porcu-
pine seeks his right in a palaver ; a cherished root is dug only after
a short address to its spirit ; the hunted bear is formally begged
for his pardon. The Brazilian Indian hits the * vicious ' stone
over which he has stumbled and the arrow that wounded him.
The tree from which a man fell to break his neck is ceremoniously
cut down ; another member of the tiger clan has to die for the
' murder ' committed by a fellow-tiger.
Such customs live on even in our time when a dog is held
responsible by American courts of law for injuries inflicted on
a person ; and the Greek court of the Prytaneum sentenced a
piece of wood or a stone ' guilty ' of a man's death to be thrown
solemnly over the border-line of the community land. Our own
children scold a chair or table against which they fall, and their
conversations with dolls, balls, and other toys go back to the
same root. The Bushmen of South Africa believe that ostriches
go hunting with bow and arrow ; and the Australians whisper
important and confidential news to each other for fear some
animal might be eavesdropping and indiscreetly spread the secret
all around.
The great phenomena of nature, day and night, sun and moon,
thunder, rain, storm, and the like, are, to primitive man, the
EACH THING HAS ITS STORY 339
utterances of spiritual beings, and they are persons like man.
The sun goes hunting ; the moon catches herself in a trap ; the
clouds are smoke from the pipes of the gods. This attitude is
still reflected in the expressions of our own language. To us,
the sun ' rises/ * shines/ ' sets ' ; the wind * blows ' or * whistles ' ;
the storm * howls ' ; the snow ' falls ' ; the water * stands ' or
* flows ' all these attributes are used in a way as though they
described the activities of living beings. The terms of our modern
physical science make use of such analogies. We reckon in * horse-
power ' units ; speed * increases ' ; and even the atom * divides
itself ' until it is * smashed ' by the superior powers of nature (in
the universe) and of man (in uranium).
The living spirits * hidden ' in the ' bodies ' of the forces of
nature assume, in the primitive world, all sorts of shapes. On
the American North-west coast thunder is created by the thunder-
bird, whose flapping wings make the rumbling sound and cause
the stormy winds. Four brothers of the Tlingit tribe, enraged over
the fact that their sister disgraced them by having intercourse with
a snail, turned into the Thunders. " When they move their
wings you hear the thunder, and when they wink you see the
lightning."
The Alsea, a vanishing tribe of the Pacific Coast, take their
precautions when the Thunder is around and try to appease
him with the words : " Dodge thyself, my friend ! " When he
threatens to rend the house they dance and hit the house with
sticks in his stead, and turn over their water-buckets to please
him. When the storm reaches its climax an old man stands up
and says suggestively to his people, " The world is not doing
anything wrong ; nature acts thus just without any bad cause."
In the African Pangwe country lightning is ' a black ball ' which
leaves its ' excrements * on the trees it hits in the form of resin,
which is worshipped as holy.
Among the Bamum and Tikar of the Cameroons there are
three kinds of lightning : ' the axe/ which splits the trees ; * the
white monkey," which destroys the plantations like a monkey ;
and * the cock/ which kills thieves. In Australia the complex
earthquake - thunderstorm - rain often goes back to one single
source of origin a snake of human appearance but with dwarfed
legs and arms, which dwells in a cave and shows itself to the
mortals in the form of a snake, eel, or leguan. Earthquakes may
be caused there by the killing of a sacred snake. After a woman
married To Uvalun, the volcano snake, she gave birth to a son
who moved into a mountain where he sits and smokes, spitting
340 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
fire and stones over the region. The earthquake snake is invisible
to men, a gigantic being with a cock's comb on its head.
The sun may be a god, a hero, a mere man, or a burning stake.
Its rays are arrows thrown to earth by the sun-god, or fishing-lines
on whose hooks the earth is lifted from the oceans. Or the sun
may own two houses, one on earth, the other in the skies, between
which it makes its daily journey, as in the Zuni country.
The moon may be a man, a hero, a god, or a woman. The
lunar mountains especially have been explained in many* mythical
ways. The * man in the moon ' may be a man, a girl, a toad
(at the Rio Ataguaya), or a frog, as in some North American
legends. The eclipses of the sun and the moon are caused by
animals eating them. (" Grizzly bear eats," say the Klamath
during an eclipse.) A frog, enraged by the fact that the sun eats
his children, gives chase to it and eats it during an eclipse, say the
Maidu of California. In the Alsea country " the crow usually
kills the moon, and also the eagle, and likewise the chicken hawk
and the owl. All the birds habitually assemble whenever they
kill the moon " ; but " even if the moon should disappear, never-
theless he will again fix his own appearance just as it was before."
When the sun is being * killed ' during an eclipse a burglar is
after him on account of his large treasure of dentalia money shells,
and all buckets of the Alsea must be upset, " because it is not
desired that the water should become bloody whenever the sun
is killed." The Zuni moon is " reborn each month, and in fourteen
days reaches maturity ; after that her life wanes."
The sun may also be a white horse which, in higher cultures,
serves as a riding animal of the sun-god a belief which is the
origin of the sacrifice of horses in India. An ancient ritual still
customary in Hanover, Germany, goes back to the same con-
ception. At Christmas time a strong young villager rides on a
white horse through the streets, collecting gifts from the house-
holders. He is the returning sun-god, who receives the presents
that replace the ancient sacrifices. The St Stephen's ride made
on December 26 on horses over many European fields to ask
the returning sun for the fertility of the coming harvest is of the
same origin, and Father Christmas, or Santa Claus, who in many
countries follows or precedes the Christ Child in the Christmas
parade, is nobody else but the old sun-god.
In the beginning of time heaven and earth were not separated
from each other, and most stories of primitive peoples dealing
with the creation of the earth give detailed descriptions of the
lifting of the heaven from the earth. Old Father Nainuema
EACH THING HAS ITS STORY 341
created the Uitoto world in a state of meditation ; smoking and
dreaming, he took the empty ground, tramped it with his feet,
and then separated the heaven from the earth. The Zufii describe
this earliest state of the world in the customary introduction of
their olden tales : " Long ago, when the earth was soft . . ."
In ancient Egypt, Shu, the sun-god, separated the heaven from
the earth ; and some of the old pictorial records of this event show
Geb, the earth, as a man over whom Nut, the heaven goddess,
stands, both supported by Shu, their mutual father. On the body
of Nut the gods travel in their boats.
The idea that the sun travels in a boat over the ocean of heaven
is familiar to many peoples on earth. But since heaven and
earth seem to grow together at the horizon it is often believed
that their daily joining and separating take place in the West,
and that the sun must pass the small crevice between them every
evening. This being a dangerous undertaking, the sun is often
harmed or wounded while sneaking through ; and his tail or leg
is squeezed off. The Greek myth of the Symplegades, two rocks
that open and close, goes back to this belief. The Australian
sun-god has only one good leg ; the other one, a stump, has been
mutilated during the travel. The Mexican sun-god is equally
crippled, and some of the old codices show him with blood
streaming from his left stump. But here the rocks are replaced
by a fish, a conception that leads to a combination of the saga
of the Symplegades with that of a fish who eats the sun at night
to spit it out again in the morning a story known to us as the
Jonah myth. It is the ancient myth of the setting sun which is
1 eaten ' by the darkness of the night and ' spat out ' again in
the morning when the ball of light emerges in new glory.
The North-west American Haida, whose story of the whale
that swallowed the raven (the latter is their mythical personifi-
cation of the sun) gives their version of the sunset and sunrise,
like to paint the story on their sacred objects.
The African Zulu have the sun swallowed by a monster living
in their river, and it * dies ' when the sky takes on a flaming red
colour the evening glow. Where there is no ocean or huge river,
the sun is eaten by an elephant or a wolf. The story of Little
Red Riding Hood is nothing else but another version of the Jonah
myth, the red cap on her head being the setting ball of the sun,
the wolf being the night. Where a gigantic snake takes the part
of the night that swallows the light of the day, it develops gradually
into the mystical dragon monster which, in China, fetches the
sun from the sea. The Emperor of China, son of the sun, sat
342 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
on a golden dragon throne, and his banners showed the dragon
with the red-glowing ball of the sun.
In the myths of many peoples life on earth began on the day
when the sun emerged for the first time from the nocturnal belly
of the fish, the land monster, or the box in which it swam in the
ocean and together with the sun appeared all living creatures who
had fled into the box or boat to escape a great flood ; in this we
recognize the Ark of Noah, whose ancestor was the ancient sun-god.
The story of the great flood belongs to the oldest myths of man-
kind. It appears in the stories of India, Persia, Greece, and the
Nordics ; the Mexicans knew it, and it is told by the arctic and
subarctic hunters, by the peoples of North and South America,
Melanesia, and elsewhere. However, the old assumption that its
distribution is world-wide has been refuted by modern science. It
does not appear in China and Japan ; it cannot be found in the
Buddhist scripts or among the Egyptians and the Arabs. The
Chaldean record of the great flood and that of Genesis , however,
dates back to 2000 B.C.
The different variations of the story of the great flood belong to
the most fascinating manifestations of human imagination. Volume
after volume has been filled with it by scientists who never ceased
to be attracted by this tale,' which is so often chosen by primitive
man as the logical explanation of the origin of life or the survival
of living creatures after one or more previous * ends of the world/
To pick just one example from hundreds, the version told by the
eastern Athapasks follows in abbreviated form.
THE STORY OF THE GREAT FLOOD l
In the beginning, people lived on earth just as to-day. But
some winter, something extraordinary happened : snow fell in such
huge quantities that the whole world was buried under it and that
only the tops of the highest pines stuck out from under the blanket
of snow. All animals who then lived among the humans hurried
towards the sky to look for warmth. The squirrel who was fastest
climbed the top of the highest pine-tree, drilled a hole in the sky,
and entered through it the heavenly regions. This hole is the sun.
All other animals hurried to squeeze themselves through the same
hole, whereby the squirrel came so closely to the source of warmth
that its pelt was singed ; that is why it is still red even to-day.
The bear who was the overlord of the upper regions did not like
the idea that the light from Heaven now streamed down to earth,
Adapted from Petitot.
EACH THING HAS ITS STORY 343
and he covered the sun-hole with skins, so that it was dark again
in the cold world. The bear and his sons collected all the warmth
of Heaven in a huge leather bag and hung it up in a high tree in
the upper regions where in other bags the other weathers were
stored : there was one bag with rain and one with snow, one with
nice weather and one with storm, one full of cold, and now the one
containing the warmth. The bear and his sons lay down under that
tree to guard the bag that contained the warmth, and he said to the
There was one bag with rain and one with snow, one with nice
weather and one with storm, one full of cold, and now the one
containing the warmth.
other animals, " Don't you dare to steal it ! " And who among them
was strong enough to fight the powerful bear ? They almost
despaired. The reindeer who knows how to run fast offered to
try his best. He swam toward the bear (the tree he guarded grew
on an island of Heaven), and grabbed the bag containing the warmth
before the bear could hinder him. The bear fetched his boat, but
when he began to paddle, his paddle broke, because it had been
secretly hollowed out by the mouse as his contribution to the common
good. This gave the animals a chance to get away with the bag.
It was very heavy, and they carried it alternately, suspended from a
beam. On the long road between Heaven and Earth they had to
rest every night. One evening when they got ready to camp the
mouse, whose shoes were walked to shreds, cut a tiny piece of
leather from the bag to mend them and this unfortunate act
344 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
caused the great accident. The warmth streamed from the hole
with such terrific power that the gigantic blanket of snow which
covered the earth was melted down in a matter of seconds and
turned into a horrible flood that rose and rose until it covered even
the highest mountains.
An old Indian with white hair had foreseen this event and had
warned his fellow-tribesmen of the moment when the snow would
melt. " Let us build a large canoe to save us," he had said, but
they had laughed at him. " If there should be a flood," they said,
" we can always climb on the mountains which it cannot reach."
But they were wrong. The water caught up with them, and they
drowned, up to the last man. All animals also perished in the
Great Flood which marked the end of the world.
Only one Indian was saved, Etsie, the grandfather, who had
built the boat nevertheless, and had taken with him a couple of birds
and animals of each kind. When they had travelled in Etsie's boat
for a long, long time, food became scarce ; they hated the sight
of the water, and longed for the soil. But there was no trace of
it. The flood would not disappear. All water- animals tried to
reach the ground by diving, but they did not succeed. The eagle
flew away to look for some firm soil, but he found nothing. The
pigeon tried his luck and stayed away for two days, after which he
returned, completely exhausted. But he carried a small piece of
pine in his beak : he had seen some tree-tops emerging from the
water. This encouraged all other animals, and they began to dive
again in their search for the ground. The bisam rat almost drowned
in his attempt. The otter stayed under water so long that he almost
died. " Nothing ! " he said before he fainted. Finally the little
trumpet-duck tried his luck. When he emerged from the water,
he had some soil between his toes. He tried again, and by some
miracle he succeeded in lifting the earth. It is he who brought the
earth back to all who live to-day. He is the smartest of all creatures.
But not only is the origin of all beings and all things visible or
invisible explained in the stories of the aborigines ; all important
events in their lives become the core of their myths. The habits,
shapes, and colours of animals are ' factually ' explained. The
opossum has a large mouth because he once laughed excessively at
the deer whom he had fooled ; the howling monkey never descends
from the trees because he is afraid of the tapir whose precious
flute he once stole ; the animals live now in the bush and
no longer in houses as before, because a son of men out-tricked
them. Certain animals are recognized as masters of clever ruse ;
mostly small in stature, they outwit their larger brethren by their
quick thinking. In our tales this role is played by the fox ; in
Africa and South America the clever one is often the turtle. Some
EACH THING HAS ITS STORY 345
animals were formerly humans, yet deeds of greed or selfishness
* made their hands crooked ' but more often the animals are the
ancestors of man.
Some animals are regarded as * bad/ like the wolverine of the
North, that * Indian devil ' who steals the bait from the traps and
springs them, and who even eats the precious bundles of fur stored
by the Indians in their caches. To the African Pangwe the
ichneumon, which eats the chickens' eggs, is mom, a criminal.
In contrast to this, other animals are worshipped for the sake of
their ' noble ' qualities. The alligator-killing varan is holy in many
parts of Africa ; the Pangwe treat him as their equal, and use his
likeness as their favourite ornament. In arctic regions especially
the bear is looked upon as equal, if not superior, to man. A pipe
of peace is stuck in his mouth by the hunter who was * forced ' to
kill him, and the sight of his dead body is hidden from the eyes of
women and children to spare his feelings. The Naskapi believe
that all animals live in tribes, like people, but not so the bear,
because each bear is * a chieftain by himself.'
Many native stories end in a moral. Told for educational pur-
poses, they warn one not to neglect the gods, not to touch one's
neighbour's property, not to laugh at the aged, and so forth ; or
they ridicule those who desire what they are not fit to have, like the
rabbit who tried to imitate his friend the beaver, and was almost
drowned in his attempt to fish beaver-fashion in the icy water.
All the wit and gaiety of the primitives scintillate in their stories.
Some are hilarious in their grotesque descriptions and analogies ;
some are saintly, others audacious. Some, unknowingly, preach
deep philosophy. In Africa animal fables are told before the courts
of justice to stress a legal point or to whitewash a defendant.
Elsewhere roundabout suggestions are made to the gods in the form
of solemnly told stories. All over the primitive world the enter-
tainment and education provided by the ancient tales substitute
effectively for Church and school, cinema and magazine. What-
ever their contents, they are good stories and eagerly listened to.
Songs and poetry occasionally interrupt the flow of the narrative ;
artistic pauses increase the element of suspense, and all the tricks
of accomplished rhetoric are applied to enchant the minds of the
listeners.
The right to tell the ancient stories is often owned by one group
or individual alone, and the teller of tales is usually a revered old
man ; his title is ' master of the tale.'
The Dayak of Borneo distinguish between three different lan-
guages : those of men, of the souls, and of the gods. Indonesian
346 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
aesthetics distinguish between an ordinary and a high style of
narrating a story. Rentas is the adjective bestowed upon a masterly
Dayak story-teller * whose words one hears with delight.' His job
is to entertain the people at night when they are making braid in
the community house. Among the favourite subjects of his tales
are gods and ghosts, men, plants, and animals, the jewelled flowers
of the ' Better World/ the vampires with their bones of knives, the
deeds of Abir the hero, the ruses of the dwarf, and the well-known
trial in which it was decided that the delicious smell of Toasted fish
must be paid for with the lovely sound of drums. A Dayak story
apt to please must have three qualities truth, beauty, and logical
sequence and the expert listeners are not easily fooled.
The African tellers of tales like to speak * as though they talked
to the fire.' The Eskimo and the old men in the tents of Labrador
seem to translate the magic light of the aurora borealis into words
when they relate with sparse gestures and in the tone of reverence
the secrets of the wilderness. A bird is no longer a bird, but
becomes the messenger of some mystical shaman ; the night
breathes with life stars and moon, bear and beaver, sledge and ice,
begin to speak with human voices ; and the presence of the forces
of the universe is felt in intimate tangibility by all who listen to his
slow and stirring voice.
But better than any mere description are the tales themselves.
A few follow. In accordance with the idea of this book, they have
been chosen for the sake of one common characteristic : they all
explain the origin of things.
THE ORIGIN OF THE SUN
An Australian Myth l
In the olden times there was no sun ; only the moon and the
stars shone together in the skies. There were no people on earth,
only birds and some animals much larger than we know them to-day.
One day Dinevan, the emu, and Bralgah, the crane, took a walk
together. But they had a misunderstanding, and soon began to
fight one another. Bralgah lost his temper, rushed to the nest of
Dinevan, seized one of his eggs, and threw it with all his strength
towards the sky, where it hit a pile of firewood and smashed to
pieces. The yellow yolk ran all over the wood-pile and set it
aflame, so that the whole world was suddenly lit up by the burning
wood. Until then there had been only a very dim light over the
earth, and now those beneath were blinded by the strong glow of
the fire.
Adapted from K. Langloh Parker.
EACH THING HAS ITS STORY 347
The good spirit who lives in the skies liked the illumination, and
thought how nice it would be to have a fire like this every day. So
he established the custom. Every night his servant spirits collect
the firewood, and when the pile is ready he sends the morning star
out to announce that the fire will be lit up soon.
However, he noticed that the visible announcement by the morning
star alone could not awake the sleepers on earth, and he looked for
a sound effect to accompany the signal. Yet he could not find the right
individual to make the right sound.
One evening he heard the laughter of gurgurgaga y the cock.
" This is my man ! " he said to himself, and engaged the bird to
laugh every morning before the lighting of the pile would begin.
If he should neglect his duty the pile would not be set on fire.
Gurgurgaga has since done his job so well that he never neglects
to laugh every morning at the proper time. He ends his performance
by calling his name three times : " Gurgurgaga ! Gurgurgaga !
Gurgurgaga! "
In the morning, when the spirits light the pile, there is not much
heat at first. But towards noon, when the whole pile is aglow, it gets
pretty hot on earth. After that, the warmth gradually decreases
until in the evening there is just a faint red glow left, which quickly
turns into grey ashes. Only a few burning logs are kept over night,
carefully wrapped in clouds, so that the fire can be rekindled easily
when the morning comes. If some one should ever ridicule gurgur-
gaga y who is very sensitive, he would stop laughing in the morning,
and then the earth would be shrouded in darkness again.
THE ORIGIN OF THE MOON
A Tale from New Guinea x
In our village of Votrejeng a brother and a sister were once alone
at home. When they got hungry they looked for some sago to
cook a meal. When they took the cover from the big earthenware
pot where their mother kept the sago they found in it one big piece
which was perfectly round and had such a beautiful brilliant shine
that they forgot their hunger and began to play ball with it outside
their hut.
The sun-god Wunekau who peeked down from the sky watched
them play, and came down a little bit to have a better look at that
shining piece of sago. Finally he covered his face with a huge leaf
in order not to singe the children, and came down within talking
distance. " Throw your ball a little higher/* he said to the
children, " so that I can have a look at it too." When they did so
he caught the ball of sago and took it with him into the skies,
1 Adapted from P. H. Meyer.
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
disregarding the crying children. After all, until then he had had a
very hard life, being on duty day and night. He established the sago
ball as Moon, the night watchman, and as soon as the moon begins
his rounds the sun can rest and go to sleep.
THE ORIGIN OF THE MAN IN THE MOON
As told by Tomo Kak'wa of the Montagnais-Naskapi Tribe l
In olden times there was no night. The sun and the moon shone
side by side in the heavens, so that it was always day.
He looked at the moon, close at hand, and was no longer
afraid of her. In fact, he liked her so much that he eagerly
walked into her. Then he himself cut the snare. . . .
An Indian called Tsegabec longed for the darkness, and he re-
solved to create the night. He was a wonderful trapper, and could
snare any animal he wanted to. His sister had once said to him :
" If you ever want to catch something unusual, ask me for some
of my long hair and make a snare of it. With such a snare you will
be able to catch things that the other Indians cannot trap."
1 Recorded by Julius E. Lips.
EACH THING HAS ITS STORY 349
On that day Tsegabec went to his sister and asked her for one
of her hairs.
" You must be up to something/* said she.
" Oh, no/* said he, and began to sing.
She gave him a hair, and he made a snare out of it. He carefully
set the snare at the end of the path which the moon was accustomed
to travel, and, believe it or not, he actually caught the moon in it.
Night fell, and for a long time darkness was on the earth.
Tsegabec began to weep, and was afraid of what he had done.
At home in his tent he had a huge bag of animals which he had
once caught in his snares : rats, moles, mice, and other little
creatures.
When the moon had been caught he asked his sister to bring him
the bag with the animals.
" What do you want it for ? " she asked.
He answered : " Never mind ! Just bring it to me ! "
He let the animals out, and begged them to gnaw the moon out
of the snare. They tried one after another, but to no avail. Finally
the mouse succeeded in freeing the moon. The moon again jumped
up to the heavens and ran after the sun, but she could not catch up
with him. Since that time, the sun and the moon have been as we
see them to-day, and thus day and night were created.
But Tsegabec could not forget his adventure with the moon. He
could not resist the temptation to catch 'her once again.
One day he left his tent, prepared to go hunting.
" Where are you going ? " asked his sister.
" Oh, I am just going out to trap rabbits/* answered Tsegabec.
But secretly he went to the edge of the world where the moon rises,
and again set his snare to catch her.
When the moon rose she again caught herself in the snare.
Seeing this, Tsegabec rejoiced. He looked at the moon, close at
hand, and was no longer afraid of her. In fact, he liked her so much
that he eagerly walked into her. Then he himself cut the snare, and
rose up to the heavens in the moon.
From there he still looks down upon the earth every night when
it is dark. We call him the Man in the Moon.
The Haida, another North American Indian tribe, believe that
Roong, the moon, once saw on earth a man whom he liked. Sending
down his rays, he pulled the man up to him to have company.
The kidnapped Indian tried to hold on to his water-bucket because
he wanted to stay on earth with his family, but to no avail. Since
then, he is up there in the moon. Whenever he turns over the pail
which he still holds in his hand it rains on earth.
In Micronesia, as P. Hambruch and A. Brandeis tell us, the
' human figure ' in the moon is not a man at all but a pretty girl
from Nauru Island, who once lived with her grandmother under a
350 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
very tall tree. Ejiwanoko that was the girl's name was so beauti-
ful that her grandmother thought her too good to marry a mortal
man and looked for a son-in-law among the gods. One day she
advised the girl to adorn herself with flowers and sweet-smelling oils,
and gave her some magic medicine, after which she told the girl to
climb upwards in the tree, higher and higher, until she reached
the sky. Nobody had ever been able to accomplish this before.
Ejiwanoko did what she was told. When she arrived among the
clouds she found there a blind old woman who, with hot stones,
cooked palm wine to molasses in thirty coconut calabashes. Over-
whelmed by thirst, the girl drank from some of the vessels. The
woman, though blind, noticed this, and threatened to have her
killed by her two sons when they got home in the evening. The
girl tried in vain to obtain her forgiveness, and finally in her anxiety
offered to cure the old woman's eyes. To her own amazement,
she succeeded. She touched the blind eyes, and immediately some
lizards, bugs, and other nasty creatures sprang out of the old
woman's eyes, and she could see again.
Happily, the old woman embraced her, and hid her under a huge
Tridacna shell, because her returning sons would kill any stranger.
But when the first son, Iguan, came home he noticed that his
mother shut her eyes at His approach. He was the sun, and no
seeing person could look at him without being blinded. While he
asked her who restored her sight the second son came home. He
was Merriman, the moon. When their mother told them what
had happened, each of them wanted to see the girl. She came out
from under the Tridacna shell, and was so beautiful that both
wanted to marry her. They left it to her to choose between them,
and promised that they would not be jealous. The old woman
asked her which of the two should be her husband. Ejiwanoko said :
" I cannot marry Iguan. He is too hot ; I cannot look at him.
But Merriman looks so quiet and gentle. I will go with him."
Upon these words, Merriman took her in his arms and sailed
with her up into the skies, where we can see them travel together
when the night is clear.
THE ORIGIN OF DAY AND NIGHT
As told by the Creek Indians x
The animals held a meeting, and Nokosi, the Bear, presided.
The question was, how to divide day and night.
Some desired the day to last all the time ; others wished to have
1 After John R. Swanton.
EACH THING HAS ITS STORY
351
all night. After much talk Chew-thlock-chew, the ground squirrel,
said :
" I see that Wotko, the Coon, has rings on his tail divided equally
first a dark colour, then a- light colour. I think day and night ought
to be divided equally, like the rings on Wotko's tail.
The animals were surprised at the wisdom of Chew-thlock-chew.
They adopted his plan, and divided day and night like the rings on
Wotko's tail, succeeding each other in regular order.
Nokosi, the Bear, in envy scratched the back of Chew-thlock-chew,
and thus caused the stripes on the back of his descendants, the
ground squirrels.
THE ORIGIN OF THE FIRE
How the Creek Indians got It 1
All the people came together, and said : " How shall we obtain fire ? "
It was agreed that the Rabbit should try to obtain fire for the
people. He went across the great water to the East. He was
received gladly, and a great dance was arranged. The Rabbit
entered the dancing circle, gaily dressed, and wearing a peculiar
cap on his head in which he had stuck four sticks of rosin.
Rabbit also bowed to the fire, lower and lower. Suddenly, as he
bowed very low, the sticks of rosin on his cap caught fire, and his
head was a blaze of flame.
After John R. S wanton.
352 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
As the people danced they approached nearer and nearer to the
sacred fire in the centre of the circle. The Rabbit also danced
nearer to the fire. The dancers began to bow to the sacred fire,
lower and lower. Rabbit also bowed to the fire, lower and lower.
Suddenly, as he bowed very low, the sticks of rosin on his cap caught
fire, and his head was a blaze of flame.
The people were amazed at the impious stranger who had dared
to touch the sacred fire. They ran at him in anger, and away ran
Rabbit, the people pursuing him. He ran to the great yvater and
plunged in, while the people stopped on the shore.
Rabbit swam across the great water, with the flames blazing from
his cap. He returned to his people, who thus obtained fire from
the East.
THE ORIGIN OF DEATH
As explained by the Kamba, a Bantu Tribe of British East Africa x
The great old man in Heaven said : " Well, I have created men.
They die. But I don't want them to be dead altogether. They
should rise again. "
He created the people and set them loose in a distant region. As
to himself, he stayed at home.
For three days he was visited by the Chameleon and the Weaver-
bird, and he noticed that the Weaver-bird is very talkative and that his
words are composed of truths and lies. But he uses more lie-words
than truth-words. On the other hand, the great old man realized
that the Chameleon was a wise creature whose words were truthful.
So he turned to the Chameleon and said :
" Go to the place where the people dwell whom I have created.
Tell them : when they die, and even if they are very, very dead,
they shall nevertheless rise again. Every man shall be able to rise
after death."
The Weaver-bird remained with the great old man. In the mean-
time the Chameleon had arrived at the humans' place, and began :
" I have been told ... I have been told ..." Well, he had forgotten
the message !
The Weaver-bird said to the great old man : " Let me fly a bit
at the Chameleon's side," and he was told : " Go ! " He just
arrived when the Chameleon turned helplessly to the humans to
stammer again : " I have been told . . ."
Immediately the Weaver-bird fell in and said : " We have been
told that when humans die they have to perish like the roots of the
aloe." But the Chameleon who now remembered said :
" No ! We have been told to say : * When people die, they shall
rise again ! "
Since each of the two insisted that his message was the right one,
1 Adapted from Brutzer.
EACH THING HAS ITS STORY
353
and since they could come to no agreement, they called upon the
magpie to be their arbitrator.
" The Weaver-bird is right, the Chameleon is wrong ! " was the
decision of the magpie.
Since that time men have to die, and cannot rise again.
THE ORIGIN OF THE ACORNS
A Karuk Indian Myth l
Acorns were formerly members of the Ikxareyav tribe, the Indians
who were here before we came and who turned into the animals,
rocks, things, and ceremonies which the Karuk hold dear.
In falling, they became giddy, and shut their eyes
and turned their faces into their hats. . . .
1 Adapted from John P. Harrington.
12
354 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
Three acorn girls, Black Oak Acorn, Tan Oak Acorn, and Post
Oak Acorn, decided that they should have nice-looking hats, and
they started weaving them, each one for herself. At that time the
Ikxareyavs still lived in Heaven. While they were weaving the
girls felt that something unusual was going on, and they said to each
other: "We'd better go! Human is being raised/'
Black Oak Acorn did not finish her hat. Tan Oak Acorn did
not have the time to clean off the projecting straws from the inside
of her hat, so she just turned it wrong side out and wore it that way.
Only Post Oak Acorn had finished and cleaned her hat. When
they got ready they were joined by Maul Oak Acorn, who wore a nice
hat.
Suddenly, they fell from the Heavens into Human's place.
Anticipating their future destinies, they said : " Human will spoon
us up." In falling, they became giddy, and shut their eyes and turned
their faces into their hats.
When they arrived on earth they grew jealous of one another.
Tan Oak Acorn wished bad luck toward Post Oak Acorn and Maul
Oak Acorn, only because they had nicer hats. They, in turn, wished
her to be black. The bad wishes came true, and so it happens that
to-day nobody likes to eat Post Oak Acorn and that Maul Oak Acorn
does not taste good either, because she is hard to pound. The soup
they make is black ; it is not good soup.
Before they spilled down they had just painted themselves.
Black Oak Acorn was striped ; she is still striped when we pick her
up from the ground to-day. But Tan Oak Acorn did not paint herself
much ; she didn't think it worth while because her hat was not
finished.
Because they turned their faces into their hats when they fell
they still have their faces in their hats nowadays.
THE ORIGIN OF THE SHELL MONEY
As told on the Gazelle Peninsula, Melanesia l
We had shell money in the olden times, and we had to travel only
four days to the place where it abounded. But now it takes us six
months to find it. Why ? Just listen.
One day the men boarded their boats to make the short trip to
the money land, and the whole village was at the beach to see them
off. An old man warned : " Be polite toward every one you meet,"
and they left.
After a short while they met the hermit-crab, who courteously
wished them a good morning. The men in the boat laughed at
1 Adapted from P. J. Meier.
EACH THING HAS ITS STORY 355
him and said : " Look at the ugly face of that fellow ! Isn't he
disgusting ? " And they did not greet him.
The hermit-crab said to them : " Just go ahead ! You will not
find any more shell money ! The shells will move far away to a
distant place. Men like you are not worthy of them ! "
And really, the men could not find a single shell. Sadly and
empty-handed, they returned. And there was no more money to
be had.
One day a little boy who was hungry asked his parents for food,
but they would not give him any. They scolded him and said :
" Why don't you eat the dirt or the dirt of children who are your
playmates ? " Sadly he went to the beach, where he met an old
tree lying in the water.
On their way they met another dug-out in which a
cassowary sat and paddled. After an exchange of polite
greetings, they passed each other.
" What is the matter with you ? " asked the trunk. " Why are
you so sad ? "
" My father and mother have scolded me," said the boy, " I
don't know what to do."
" Jump in," said the tree which the boy now recognized as a
dug-out, and they swam out into the sea. There were coconuts
in the canoe, and the boy could drink and eat. With great speed
they moved on and on until they finally landed at Nakanai, the
place where the shell money is found to-day. The dug-out now
advised the boy to weave baskets, two and eight and ten until
he had thirty of them and to line them up along the surf.
" Step back," said the dug-out, and suddenly a gigantic wave came,
all filled with shells. It reached over the thirty baskets, and filled
them all before it withdrew.
They were now no longer alone at the beach, because another
dug-out had landed, steered by a rooster who was quite friendly and
offered to take the boy back to his home in his canoe. He carried the
thirty baskets full of shell money all in the rooster's canoe, and off
356 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
they went in the direction of the boy's village. On their way they
met another dug-out in which a cassowary sat and paddled. After
an exchange of polite greetings they passed each other.
Finally they reached the boy's home village, and while he went to
his parents' house the rooster stayed in the canoe to guard the money
baskets. When the boy reached the hut the boy saw that a funeral
scaffold had been erected, that mourners had been invited, and that
everything was ready for a funeral.
" All this has been prepared for you," said the boy's father and
mother. " We thought you were dead, and we spent our last money
on these preparations."
The boy took a large package of food, and asked his parents to
follow him to the beach. There he thanked the rooster, gave him
the food, and unloaded the thirty money baskets. The rooster jumped
in again, and swam and swam until he was back at Nakanai.
" What shall we do with these shells ? " asked the parents, because
their former money had been of another shape.
" Drill holes into them and thread them on strings." So they did.
The boy tied them to a large hoop, and gave it to his parents.
" Take this as a compensation for the expenses I have caused you,"
he said, and his parents returned happily to their home. The boy,
however, took the rest of the money and it was very much built
his own hut, and was now the wealthiest person in the whole village.
From time to time, under his guidance, the men of the village made
an expedition to the island of Nakanai, whose overlords are the
rooster and the cassowary, but they never find as many shells as the
boy owns, and although they carefully pay their homage to the two
masters of the island, the trip takes them six months, and they remain
dependent upon the good will of the shells, the canoes, the cock,
and the cassowary.
THE ORIGIN OF POTTERY
A Tale of East African Ukamba l
Those earliest people of long ago who came up out of a termitary
were given all sorts of food, but they had to eat it raw ; it was not
cooked.
One day a woman set out from the village and went to the river.
She went to fetch water from the river in some rolled-up leaves. At
the shore she found a peculiar-looking piece of rock, hollow in the
middle. She filled it with water, and carried it home, where she put
it on her hearth. When she prepared the food for her family in the
evening she put some of the maize and bean mush into the hollow
stone and boiled it and, lo and behold, it tasted wonderful and much
better than raw food.
1 Adapted from Gerhard Lindblom.
EACH THING HAS ITS STORY 357
Next morning a neighbour dropped in, saw the hollow stone,
admired it, and asked whether the woman had another one like it to
give to her.
" No," said the first woman, " I found it near the river, and there
was just one/'
" Let us go there and look for another one ! "
So the two women started off and looked around. There was no
other stone like it, but there was fat and slippery clay, and they took
some of it, mixed it with water, and tried to imitate the shape of the
hollow stone. For five days they tried, and finally they made little
things which they called clay vessels. They burned them in a fire,
and they became hard and firm as stone.
At home they put them on the fireplace and invited all the rest of
the women :
" Come and see ! We have prepared this earth, and we are able
to boil water in it which does not come out on the fireplace." And
they also cooked mush in the vessels, and it tasted wonderful ! The
other women tried to imitate their handicraft, but they did not
succeed, and whoever wanted a nyun'gu or clay pot had to order it
from the two women, who were paid for it in beautiful blue beads.
And they called all the men, and there was a big celebration to
commemorate the invention of the clay vessels. The women's
husbands especially invited the holy old men who spit in the women's
hands to bless them.
" Pt, pt, pt" made the old men, and ttey said : " You have become
very clever. You made the clay vessels ! "
And they advised the women never to allow a man to watch them
while making clay vessels, otherwise they would lose their skill. They
abided by this faithfully.
That is how mankind learnt to make clay vessels, and our people
have been blessed with them ever since.
THE ORIGIN OF THE SNOW-SHOES
A Myth of the Carrier Indians of British Columbia x
The Grouse and a Carrier Indian sat down beside each other, and
the Grouse, in a generous mood, showed the man how to make snow-
shoes, which the animals used since the earliest times to walk over the
deep snow. Grouse told him every detail, and the man learnt from him
how to make the frame. When the first frame was ready the Indian's
wife was called in, and Grouse showed her how to lace them with
leather strings. So the woman laced the first pair. They thanked
Grouse, and he left them to go back home.
1 Adapted from Diamond Jenness.
358
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
He had gone only a little way when he fell dead, for he had talked
too much.
That is how the Carrier Indians learnt to make snow-shoes.
Even if we have the best intentions, we should not talk too much.
THE ORIGIN OF THE KILLER WHALE
A Tale of the Tlingit Indians l
A man of the Seal People Band who was a very skilled wood-carver
thought that the Indians would be happier if there were killer whales,
and he set out to make one.
He first tried to carve it out of red cedar, then of hemlock, then of
all other kinds of wood in succession. He took each set of figures to
the beach and tried to make them swim out, but instead they floated
only on the surface. Last of all he tried yellow cedar, and this time
he was successful.
He made different kinds of whales. On one he marked white lines
with Indian chalk from the corners of its mouth back to its head.
He said :
" This is going to be the white-mouthed killer whale." When he
first put them into the water he headed them up the inlet, telling
them that whenever they went up to the heads of the bays they were
to hunt for seal, halibut, and all other things under the sea ; but he
told them not to hurt a human being. He told them :
" When you are going up the bay people will say to you : * Give
us something to eat.* "
The whales followed his instructions, and since that time they
drive the water creatures towards the shore so that the Indians can
catch them.
Before this, people did not know what a killer whale was.
THE ORIGIN OF THE BEAVER
As the Carrier Indians tell It 2
A newly married couple left Fraser Lake to hunt in the mountains
to the southward, where they camped alone near a small stream.
The woman grew lonely when her husband was absent from morning
until evening, and to pass the time made a small dam across the
stream ; but her husband, finding that it made the water too deep
for him to wade across, broke it down with his foot.
She burst into tears, and said : " Why did you break it ? I was
lonely while you were away, and built it to pass the time/'
The next day she made another dam, and he broke that also. This
1 Adapted from John R. Swanton. 2 Adapted from Diamond Jenness.
EACH THING HAS ITS STORY
359
happened again and again until she became very angry. One evening
when her husband returned from his hunting he found a very large
dam spanning the stream and a beaver-house in the middle of the
water. His wife was kneeling on the edge of the pond with her
breech-cloth in her hand. She tucked it between her legs as soon
as she saw her husband coming, leaped into the water, and entered
the beaver-house. The man broke down the dam and let out all
the water, but he could not find her. Then he broke down the
beaver-house. Still he could not find her. So that night he slept
alone.
I changed into a beaver. Now go back home, for I
cannot live with you any more.
He went hunting again the next morning, and when he returned
his wife had repaired the dam and was working on the lodge. Already
she was changing into a beaver. She eluded all his attempts to
capture her.
He became afraid that her people would blame him for killing her
if she would not show up again, so he went and returned with her
whole family, and they all assembled at the shore.
They saw a large beaver leaping out of the water and sitting on
the top of her house. It was the woman, whose trailing breech-cloth
had become a large flat tail. She called to her people :
" My husband did not kill me, but I changed into a beaver. Now
go back home, for I cannot live with you any more."
That is why the beaver's belly and intestines resemble those of a
human being and why there are now beavers in this world.
360 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
THE ORIGIN OF THE CAT
A Tale of the Cochiti Indians of New Mexico 1
At Painted Cave there was a village, and out of this village came
the Deer, the Bear, the Lion, the Lynx, and the Wild Cat. They
said :
" Now we will go East and find our living the best we can." But
before they went they said :
" There is one thing we have not got, and that is the cat. But
how can we get the cat ? "
The Lion stood in the middle of the circle, and all the oldest
animals were smoking round him. He said :
" Well, I am ready."
He sneezed, and out came a female cat from his right nostril. He
sneezed again, and out of the left nostril came a male cat.
From these two come all the little cats, and they came down to
Cochiti. The Lion said to the cats :
" Now you are the offspring of the Lion and have my face. When
you have little kittens the humans will want them, because with these
cats they won't have mice any more. They will be the watchmen of
the houses. The rest of the animals shall live in the mountains, but
you two cats shall live in Cochiti." So it happened, and that is why
we have cats to-day. ,
THE ORIGIN OF THE BLACK PEOPLE
As told by the Fjort of the French Congo 2
In the first days of Creation four men wandered through an im-
mense forest severed from the world beyond two rivers, one of which
had clear water, but the other one was dark and muddy. At that
time all people were white, and there were no black men in the world.
The dark river lay in front of the four men's path, but the clear
stream was more pleasant to wade through. After deliberating, the
men decided to go through the dark water, and two of the four did
so at once. The other two hesitated, and ran away. The two men
in the dark stream called to them and urged them to follow, but in
vain. Their comrades ran to the clear river, and waded through it.
When they climbed out they saw to their horror that they had become
black, and only those parts of their bodies with which they had touched
the dark river remained clean their mouths, the soles of their feet,
and the palms of their hands.
When the four comrades met again they decided to part company.
When they reached their journey's end the black men found only
L Adapted from Ruth Benedict. 2 After R. E. Dennett.
EACH THING HAS ITS STORY 361
huts and married the black women they found in them. The white
men who had climbed out of the dark river found enormous houses
with white women in them, and married them.
That is why some people are white and some black.
THE ORIGIN OF THE SONG DAUSI
A Myth of the West African Mandingo. 1
Once there lived a great hero, and his name was Gassire. He
pounced upon his enemies and looted their homes, and he thought
that the glory of his deeds would never be forgotten.
One day when he returned home from a fierce battle he saw in the grass
a partridge who sat there and sang. And this was the partridge's song :
" No sword is so powerful that the man who carried it would not be
forgotten. Perishable are your warlike deeds, O Gassire, because they
originate in brute force. I, too, who sing this song, will be forgotten
but not my song ! Thanks to the gods who allowed me to sing the
song called Dausi ! Heroes and cities and countries will be forgotten
some day but never Dausi, the song that will live on for ever ! "
When Gassire, the hero, heard this song of the partridge he became
very thoughtful, and he began to ponder. He went to a wise old man
to ask his advice. The wise old man said :
" The partridge is right ! Perishable are the deeds of the sword !
Heroes and cities and countries will be* forgotten but never Dausi,
the song that will live on for ever ! "
Upon this, Gassire, the hero, went to a blacksmith. All good
things in Africa are made by the smiths. Gassire said :
" Build me a lute, so that I may play on it Dausi, the song that will
always live."
The blacksmith said :
" I will make you one. But the lute will not be able to sing."
Gassire said : " Smith, do your job. The rest is up to me."
The smith built the lute and brought it to Gassire. Gassire
touched it, and tried to play it. But the lute did not sing. Gassire
said to the smith :
" What is this ? Why doesn't the lute sing ? "
The smith said : " I told you so in advance."
Gassire said : " Make the lute sing ! "
But the smith answered : "I did my job. The rest is up to you."
Gassire asked : " What shall I do ? "
The smith answered : " The lute is a piece of wood. It cannot
sing because it has no heart. It is up to you to provide it with a
heart. The wood must go to battle on your back. It must absorb
the tears from your eyes and the breath from your breath. Your
sorrows must become its sorrows ; your glory must become its glory.
1 Adapted from Leo Frobenius.
12*
362 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
The wood must cease to be part of the tree from which it was shaped.
It must become a part of your destiny/'
Upon this, Gassire called his eight sons and said to them :
" To-day we all go to battle. But the deeds of our swords shall
not be forgotten. The sound of our weapons shall live on through
the times. I and you, my eight sons, shall live on in the song whose
name is Dausi."
So they went to battle, and they fought like heroes. Gassire
carried the lute on his back. The beating of his brave heart echoed
in its wood, and the sweat of his exhaustion moistened the lute when
he went home victoriously.
For eight days he went to battle with his eight sons, and always he
carried the lute on his back. And every day one of his eight sons
was killed. Gassire carried their corpses back on his shoulders, and
their blood dripped on the lute. When he had no son left he wept
for the first time in his life, and his tears fell upon the lute.
Night fell, and all people went to sleep, but not Gassire, who sat
by the fire alone. He thought of his glorious deeds and thought them
all in vain, and again he wept in his deep loneliness.
Suddenly he heard a voice next to him. It sounded as though it
came out of his own inner self. Gassire listened. He began to
tremble. He heard the lute sing. The lute sang Dausi, the song
that never dies. Not his deeds but his tears had given a heart to the
lute. That was why it coulcj sing.
It is many centuries since Gassire lived. The sound of his sword
is forgotten. But we to-day still sing the song of his heart Dausi,
the song that will always live. And those who will be born long
after us will go on singing it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Journey's End
OVER ALL THE things we do and own, over our happiness and
our grief, stands, as an ever-present mene tekel, the knowledge
that " this, too, shall pass." The Bible promises us a span of life
of " threescore years and ten " and perhaps, " by reason of strength
. . . fourscore years, " after which we have to " fly away/' Modern
statistics show that most of us are not given that long. Even
the latest wonder drug of science, which is supposed to extend
human life expectancy to a century and a half, cannot nullify the
inevitability of death.
The manner in which we resign ourselves to the knowledge that
some day our hearts will stop beating depends on our individual
philosophy of life, on the depth of the sources that reconcile us with
death. " All men are condemned to death only the date of the
execution is uncertain " is the consolation with which Victor Hugo's
condemned criminal is comforted in the guillotine's shadow. This
forethought of the inevitability of dea^h stands in sharp contrast to
the conceptions of primitive man. Though surrounded by the
ever-present evidences of death that are even more obvious in the
wilderness than in civilization, and dependent upon the necessity
to kill living creatures, it does not occur to primitive man as a
logical necessity that, in the course of nature, he himself must die.
He does not realize the certainty of death.
To most primitives the state of death is a mishap caused by
supernatural forces, most of all by witchcraft. A lethal illness is
the evidence of evil influences, and even accidents are caused by a
conspiracy of hostile spirits. In Australia, in South and North
America, in Melanesia, Africa, Madagascar, and elsewhere, the
origin of death lies in * unnatural ' occurrences which man accepts
only with repugnance and fear. Even errors on the part of the
supernatural may cause it, as some of the ancient myths explain.
Many tribes also believe that sexual intercourse and death are inter-
related and that the * invention ' of the first led to the introduction
of the second.
Primitive people are not given to any speculating whatsoever on
their own future death, which may or may not come. It may be
that shrewdness, carefulness, and worship of the proper spirits can
make an eternal existence on earth a reality who knows ? The
363
364 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
African Kpelle, for instance, worship their old men and women
because they have been smart enough to avoid for many years the
attacks of wizards, demons, and jealous ancestors.
Whatever the explanations, so much is sure : all peoples on earth
have very definite ideas on what happens to a man or woman who
is dead. Most believe in a clearly described place where the
departed continue their existence under circumstances similar to
those on earth, and that all people bury their dead in a manner
conforming to these conceptions.
As to the ways in which the survivors take care of the bodies of
the departed, even the most primitive cultures use such a multitude
of methods that it is hopeless to speculate on which is the oldest
form of burial. In Tasmania and Australia people were cremated
on pyres or buried in graves. Many northern and western Austra-
lian tribes bury their dead in trees or on scaffolds high up in the
air, or lay their bodies to rest in caves, as in Victoria. The dead
may be dried in the sun or over the fire and then deposited in a
tree, or they may be hidden in a hollow trunk. On San Cristobal
twenty-one different types of funerals are known, from burial in the
earth, in the sea, in rocks, on trees or scaffolds, and in large bags,
to cremation and mummification.
All these methods and the, great care applied in disposing of the
body are not exclusively inspired by concern for the welfare of the
departed, but are the result of the fear that the person excluded
from community life by the * accident ' of death may find means of
returning from his state of alleged immobility to frighten or harm
those who survive him. This idea of the revengeful jealousy of the
dead goes, like a red thread, through the burial customs of all
mankind since prehistoric times, up to our own civilization. The
stones that weigh down the soil over the Tasmanian grave, the
fettered mummies of Egypt, the nailed coffins of our days, all
originate in this atavistic fear.
Manifold are the means used to keep the body in its grave. The
Tasmanians tied the bodies to prevent them from moving. In
Australia the hollow tree which serves as a coffin may be pierced
with a spear to nail the neck of the departed to his prison, or the
whole tree may be set on fire after the burial. The nailing of the
dead to wooden boards in their grave developed into a regular
funeral rite in prehistoric Spain. Whole cemeteries have been
found where the skeletons showed all the evidences of a ' second
killing* by the piercing of their skulls with huge nails. This
custom was practised all through the ages, and later on was obviously
limited only to restricted groups of the population, It lives on in
JOURNEY S END
365
a curse of present-day Aragona : " May you be nailed like a Jew "
(clavado to veas, comojudio).
All over the earth primitive tribes thus take precautions that the
silent prisoner may find it impossible to leave his grave to direct
his powers against the community. The many shapes the dead are
able to assume make their reappearance doubly hazardous. In
south-eastern Australia the dead stand as stars on the sky ; they
have secret intercourse with the wizards of the tribes, and even
ordinary men and women occasion-
ally hear their voices and in the
morning see the tracks of their feet.
The corpse itself may live on, though
slightly changed in appearance. The
first white men appearing in some
regions in Australia and Africa were
taken for the spirits of the tribal
dead.
To persuade the deceased to stay
in his burial place, his friends and
relatives try to make his new home
as comfortable as possible. The
face and body are protected from
immediate contact with the soil ;
the departed may be bedded in a
niche in the rocks to shelter him
from the elements. A handsome
young man of the Australian Wimmera tribe who had been buried
in the ground was, as his tribesmen decided, " too uncomfortable "
in his grave when the chilly November rains set in. His friends
exhumed him and gave him a better burial place in a hollow tree
which they firmly sealed for his comfort.
In addition, the dead may be honoured with speeches and
promises, but after these gestures of consideration the living leave
the place of death as quickly as possible to avoid giving their former
comrade any opportunity to haunt them. Even in the oldest
cultures, however, we find the custom of simply exposing the dead
and leaving them to the mercy of the animals, a method which, for
other reasons, is especially typical of the arctic cultures and of the
herdsmen societies. Sometimes the actual moment of death is not
even waited for, and the tribesmen hurry away to escape the spirit
of the abandoned before he has breathed for the last time.
When a tribesman was accidentally drowned the Mojos Indians
of eastern Bolivia ran immediately into the woods for fear that the
NAILED SKULL
Puig Castellar (Spain)
After H. Obermaier
366 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
departed might snatch one of them for company. The Neoze of
the same region wrap their dead in mats and build a small hut of
mocatu leaves over the body, but then they hurry away. Where
the dead are buried on a scaffold or in trees, the bones may later
be collected and buried in the ground, and some parts of the skeleton
may be carried around reverently to assure the dead of continued
remembrance and at the same time to utilize the magic powers
inherent in the relics.
The Australians paint % such bones
or skulls with red or yellow ochre
to preserve them as tokens of rever-
ence. The Andamanese, who bury
their dead crouching in the soil or
lying on platforms in the trees, later
collect the bones and fashion them
into ornaments which friends and
relatives of the departed wear.
The bones left on the smouldering
funeral pyre were carefully col-
lected by the western Tasmanians.
Tied in animal skins, they were
SKULL, PAINTED IN RED, carried about by the relatives as
amulets against sickness and bad
luck. This custom lives on in the
habit of modern Japanese who pick
the remaining bones from the place
of cremation. Grieving fathers, for
instance, thus collect the bones of their departed children and
keep them at a place of reverence.
Another morbid relic of the dead is the liquid that drips from
the corpses laid to rest on lofty wooden structures. It is supposed
to have magic qualities which the living utilize for themselves.
The young men of certain tribes of eastern Queensland, like the
Kuinmurburra, who deposit the bodies of their great warriors on
wooden scaffolds, let this liquid run over their bodies to absorb the
heroic qualities of the deceased. The natives of the Belendenker
region rub their bodies with this essence to become strong ; the
Narrinyeri collect it in containers and use it in their magic
ceremonies.
This effort to utilize the magic powers of the ancestors for th<
benefit of the living finds even stronger expression in the cultures
of the agriculturists. Being settled and unable to leave the place
of death, they had to find means to be on permanently good terms
WHITE, AND YELLOW
Kopapinga Tribe,
Arnhemland, Australia
After F. D. McCarthy
JOURNEY'S END 367
with the departed. Their entire approach towards the phenomena
of life and death is determined and dominated by their close
relationship to the dead ancestors whose souls live with and among
them in continuous relationship. Although the soul may not be
immortal in our sense, it lives on in parts of the body or in other
forms of rebirth. It may, however, * age ' and fade away after a
certain period has elapsed.
In many places, for instance on the New Hebrides, it is assumed
that the soul may die two or three additional deaths until it dis-
appears altogether. It often seems as though the spirits of the
ancestors can only remain ' alive ' if continued remembrance and
sacrifice tie them to the living. Many agricultural peoples know a
regular system of a series of reincarnations, although without the
ethical conceptions which influence the idea of rebirth in higher
cultures. The Dayak of Borneo, for instance, believe that a soul
can dwell seven times as long in the land of the Great Beyond as
on earth and that it finally returns once more to earth to be reborn
in a mushroom, a fruit, a leaf, a blade of grass, or a flower. If a
human being eats such a plant or part of a plant a child will be
born to him in whom the soul of the grass or plant lives on.
In times of stress and need the living appeal to the dead for help
and assistance. These appeals are often in the form of regular
formulae or prayers to the spirits of tlie dead ; they are supported
by gifts. This continued care is in strict contrast to the attitude of
the food gatherers and hunters, who do not know the sacrifice
offered to the manes.
The spirit that enlivens a man is believed to be located in parts
of his body be it in the heart, brains, blood, liver, kidney, the
breath, or the shadow. However, most often the principal seat of
the spirit of the dead is the head, which gains an overwhelming
significance as the centre of mystical powers in these cultures.
Skulls are the objects of intensive worship. In the younger com-
plexes of the agriculturist cultures, particularly, this worship leads
to a post-lethal exhumation of the skull because it is believed to be
the precious seat of spiritual powers. Often these skulls are not
only painted and decorated, but also modelled with clay into lifelike
images with eyes of shells or stones, and are preserved in homes,
in community houses, or in special containers, as objects of religious
awe. Palavers and sessions of the native courts are held in their
revered presence ; vital decisions are made with their support.
This desire to make use of the powers located in the skull leads
not only to the custom of preserving the heads of one's own deceased
family members, but to the desire to obtain as many heads as
3 68
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
possible, even from strangers. Men, women, and children of other
tribes may be killed for the mere purpose of obtaining such heads.
Melanesia and South America are the regions where head-hunting
is practised for this reason, and the scalps of the North American
Indians are magic tokens whose high evaluation goes back to the
same idea. The stronger and the more prominent the victim,
the greater are the magic
powers of his head or
skull.
Not only the skull but
also the soft parts of the
head are preserved and
carefully mummified, a
custom most highly de-
veloped in the prepara-
tion of the famed head
trophies of the Jivaro
Indians.
Only warriors who
have killed an enemy
and have dipped their
spears into his blood
have the privilege of
preparing such trophies.
The hair of the victim
is carefully parted, and
an incision is made from
PAINTED SKULL, MODELLED WITH CLAY the forehead to the base
of the skull, whereupon
the skin is pulled off the
skull, in which only the
eyes and the tongue
remain. The soft parts are then sewn together with fibre thread ;
the lips are firmly united with bamboo splints. Only the neck open-
ing remains unclosed. The skin bags are now heated in water and
removed before the boiling-point has been reached. At this stage
they are shrunk to about a third of their original size. The
medicine men of the tribe, who supervise every detail of this
ceremony, now give the signal that the final preparation of the head
may begin. Hot sand is poured into the neck openings and the
stuffed heads are * ironed ' with hot stones, a procedure which is
repeated for about forty-eight hours, until the skin has assumed
the smooth, hard, and tough consistency of leather.
New Ireland
Museum of Ethnology, Cologne
JOURNEY S END
SKULL RECEPTACLE
Eastern Melanesia
Museum of Ethnology, Cologne
" The whole head," says Up de Graff, who furnishes a detailed
description of the procedure, " has now the dimensions of a good-
sized orange. Its likeness to the
living person is extraordinary.
In fact, the shrunken heads are
exact miniatures of their former
selves. Every trait, hair, and
scar remains unchanged, and
even the facial expression is pre-
served/' Since the hair main-
tains its original length it forms
a long mane, effectively framing
the strikingly
preserved face,
and whoever has
an opportunity
to see some of
these trophies in
the museums of the world will marvel at the
lifelike impression they make, despite their hor-
rible origin and the gruesome method of their
preparation.
The lifelikeness of the New Guinean stuffed
heads cannot equal those of the Jivaro trophies,
but their appearance is equally impressive. The
Dorro head-hunters who shape these heads stuff
them with bark and coconut fibre ; they pull out
the hair of the head, and fill the orbits of the
eyes with clay.
The belief of the agriculturists in the super-
natural powers of the head led to the development
of carved masks. These are representations of
the dead. The dances during which they are
worn are not only for the purpose of worship-
ping the spirits of the dead, but even more
for the purpose of turning their magic powers
into sources of benefit and strength for the
community.
These magnificently carved masks of the primitive agriculturists
are, perhaps, the highest expression of their art and symbolism.
Some African specimens have the appearance of Gothic saints.
Others, especially of the South Seas, show whole arrays of symbolic
animals and ghosts. The famous malagans of New Ireland are real
JIVARO HEAD
TROPHY
After K. Weule
37
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
STUFFED HUMAN HEAD
New Guinea
After A. C. Haddon
This is always retained by
the family. It is their inter-
mediary between earth and
the land where the departed
spirits reside. o
But not only do the souls
of the dead wander ; even the
souls of the living are not
necessarily bound to their
main seat, the head. A soul
may leave its body at any
time, as proved by dreams,
those adventures of the
wandering spirit. This belief
lives on in the sagas and
superstitions of all peoples,
from Greece and Rome to the
backward regions of present-
day civilizations, where we
find old tales describing a
mouse, a bumble - bee, or
similar creature that departs
from the mouth of a sleeper,
carrying his soul to the scenes
of his dreams, and returns
upon his awakening.
or symbolic representations of
the souls of the dead. They
are known by the individual
names of the departed. The
base of the long pillar of carved
images is most often a pig's
head the gift of honour of the
relatives to the deceased.
The close relationship between
skull-and-bone worship and the
carved mask is illustrated by a
custom of the Nor-Papua of
New Guinea, who immediately
after a burial lay a richly decor-
ated carved mask on the place of
the departed, which is honoured
in his stead until his lower jaw
can be secured from the grave.
WOODEN DANCE MASK
Southern Congo
Museum of Ethnology, Cologne
JOURNEY'S END 371
By means of magic, it may also happen that a foreign soul may
enter the body of a sleeper and cause the state of mind which we
call insanity.
When a person dies his spirit has permanently left the body,
often because an evil magician has driven it away. For this reason
the search for the guilty one who caused the death is a very frequent
feature in the agricultural societies. The spirit of the dead person
still lingers near his body, especially before burial, and only after
a second, final burial which takes place when the flesh has decayed
can this spirit or soul travel to the land which the gods have
established for the departed. Often other souls come from the
Beyond as a reception committee to lead the new dweller safely into
the land of the Hereafter. Thus, the Apache dead were met by
owls who called to carry their spirits away to the happy hunting-
grounds. Sometimes the dead person pays formal good-bye visits
to his remaining friends and relatives. On Ponape, his body before
burial is carried round from hut to hut, receiving at each stop the
loud lamentations of the survivors. A man takes his paddle with
him to his grave, a woman her loom. A little hut is erected over
the place of burial, where the nearest relative sleeps for five or six
nights, after which the hut is removed and the mourners with their
reverently clipped hair return to their ,daily routine.
The search for the * guilty ' is especially elaborate among the
Pangwe, where the funeral ceremony is the opportunity to find out
whether the departed himself was perhaps a magician who might
have caused the deaths of others. If this should be the case the
ewu will be found in his entrails, an evil thing that sets the deceased
apart as a demonic wizard who is not entitled to the same type of
funeral as the * good ' men who are * sons of the light.' To clarify
the situation, the medicine-man or mot a Kn (' the man who cuts
open ') is the most important officiant at the funeral ceremony.
But before he does his duty an older man steps forth from the large
crowd of the mourners to deliver the funeral oration, whose climax
is an invitation of blood revenge if the ' guilty party ' who caused
this death should be identified. After this the body is brought to
the centre of the gathering on a large piece of bark. His clothes
and bracelets, neck-rings, etc., are removed, and he is carried into
the plantation behind the houses, next to his open grave, which is
laid out with fresh leaves.
Now comes the great moment for the medicine-man to decide
whether the deceased was a * son of light ' or an evil magician. He
opens the body, examines the entrails, and proclaims his verdict.
According to his findings, the dead man now receives the careful
372 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
funeral of the ' good ' in a bark coffin, or his body is hastily disposed
of in the manner reserved for the * evil/
The relatives mourn a deceased person by wearing dry leaves
instead of their usual garb ; by shaving their heads, abstaining from
sexual intercourse, and confining themselves to their houses.
Occasionally their faces and bodies are painted white, the colour
of death.
The soul of a dead Pangwe may linger on earth in the shape of
a wild animal, to wreak vengeance upon the person wfto caused his
death. On the other hand, the soul may be kind. When, for
instance, the loving father of a poor son dies he may sacrifice his
next life for his son by transforming himself into a tiger and allowing
his son to kill him, and therewith kill his soul. By this sacrifice
he enables his son to sell the valuable skin and bones of the tiger
and buy himself a wife. Before a dead Pangwe follows the invita-
tion of the ancestral souls to travel with them to the land of Nsambe
(he recognizes their presence during his last agonies, and greets
them with a " There they are ! ") he may stay for a time near the
shadows of the trees, where one can hear his whisperings at night.
After about a year the survivors assume that he is ready to leave for
the land of Nsambe. His best clothes are ceremoniously displayed
near his hut, and the occasion is celebrated with a joyous festival,
where dances and big meals are the order of the day.
The land of the souls, ruled by Nsambe, the creator-god, is a
pleasant place, patterned after the model of the earthly existence,
but perfected in every sense. Nsambe gives to the souls gigantic
plantations, animals, and woods. Food and many women are at
the disposal of the happy community. The l bad ' are pardoned,
and everybody has a magnificently good time. Even the souls,
however, grow old, and they cannot stay in heaven for ever. So
Nsambe, " who cannot stand ugly things/' kicks them out of his
land when they become decrepit. Falling down upon the land of
the Pangwe, they remain there, weak and invisible. Only some
animals sense their presence, especially the termites, who build
their hills over the ' bodies ' of these weak old souls. When the
termitary finally crumbles to dust, it means that the soul has returned
to its original substance, the dust, from which also sun and moon
and earth once originated.
The departed now lives on only in his skull which has been
exhumed by his family to join the other, older skulls in the skull
drum in the hut. In times of stress, when Nsambe has sent illness
or bad harvests, the skulls are taken out, led about in a sacred dance,
and implored to put in their good word with the Pangwe god. If
JOURNEY S END
373
this appeal does not help the skulls fall into disgrace, are threatened
and insulted, and put away for a long, long time.
Parts of termitaries are sought after as amulets and good-luck
charms, because they contain some of the powerful soul substance
of the dead. The belief that termites are the souls of men is wide-
spread, especially in the South Seas.
Dances in celebration of the departure of the dead are a general
custom of the agriculturists from Africa to
the South Seas, and in America. They are
generally held about a year after the first
burial.
To appease the dead, token figures or the
actual belongings of the deceased are buried
with them so that they may be equipped in
proper fashion for their journey into the
other land. Many tribes destroy all earthly
possessions of the departed, not only to show
him that they have no intention to ' rob '
him, but to destroy at the same time all
possible substances of * infective ' death.
The Algonquian tribes of New England
killed the precious dogs of a dying m^n so
that they could arrive before him in the
other world. The fatally sick man even
delivered his own funeral oration by reciting
" his good deeds, giving some directions to
his family, recommending his friends, and,
finally, saying adieu." His friends showered
him with gifts while banqueting on his
food and assuring him of their grief with wild cries. When he
finally died they swathed the body, tied it up in skins " with the
knees against the stomach and the head on the knees, as we are in
our mother's womb," and buried him in this position, together
with all his possessions bags, bows, arrows, dogs, and a multitude
of additional gifts provided by the mourners.
Many of the wooden ancestral figures of the agriculturists show
the typical crouching position of the dead, and many prehistoric
skeletons have been found in this position. The Hopi, after
washing the hair of their dead with a yucca fibre concoction, fix
the corpse in a sitting position, with flexed knees and arms and tied
with yucca if necessary. The departed is then decorated with
* prayer feathers ' one in the hair, one placed under each foot * to
take the body to the other world/ one in each hand, and one over
SKULL DRUM OF THE
PANGWE
After G. Tessmann
374 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
the navel, ' the place where the breath of a man lives/ A deep
grave is dug, and the man is interred, facing towards the west.
" The hole is rapidly filled in with sand, and a stick of any sort is
placed on the grave to serve as a ladder for the breath to depart
westward, " as Beaglehole reports.
The same idea of making it possible for the soul to leave the
grave or to return to it is expressed in the New Guinean custom of
putting a bamboo cane on the head of the buried. Although his
ancestors and his totem animal have called for the soul immediately
after death to take him to the better place, his spirit might like to
return from time to time to his old form in the grave.
Closely related to the practice of burying the dead in a crouching
position is the use of large urns, baskets, or the like, as coffins.
The Tupi tribes of South America put their dead in large clay
urns to keep them safe from the soil and to make sure that the
spirit of the dead does not return. Often the bones are cleaned
afterwards, painted, and preserved in special baskets. The Bororo
paste feathers on the bones of their dead, and celebrate their
memory in elaborate feasts. The personality of the departed is
dramatically revived by actors, to appease the spirit. Urn funerals,
as the first or second (after the bones have been cleaned) burial,
are frequent also among the, Chiriguano and elsewhere.
Some interesting details about the way in which a departed
Dusun of Borneo is placed into his funeral urn have been described
by the explorer Staal, who saw the little hut of bamboo frame
erected over the corpse immediately after death.
Brass-ware, ornaments, precious cloth, are laid around and on top
of this hut. Friends and neighbours lament their staunch friend, true
neighbour, who could drink so well and even when drunk was kind
and not a fighting man. At night two men watch and keep themselves
aWake by beating gongs and courageous by taking deep draughts of
their ' champagne/ The third day the corpse is put in a jar. When
one sees the jars one wonders how in the world it is possible to get a
full-grown person in it. The top of the jar is cut off at its greatest
circumference with sharp knives. The feet are put in first, the knees
bent, and the body is pressed down. The head is bent forward on
the knees, or between them. The top is again put on and fastened
with resinous matter and clay. The priestess waves a burning and
smoking piece of wood over the coffin, chanting her unintelligible
jargon. This is done to prevent the soul of any of the bystanders
from escaping into the dead-receptacle.
Since no burial may take place when the moon is full or just
before the new moon the jar coffin is often kept in the house for a
JOURNEY'S END 375
long time. People do not mind the * pestiferous air ' nor the flies
and eat, drink, chat, and sleep there until the day comes when the
jar can finally be buried in the earth.
The African Djur bury in a cowering position only those who
die in the fight * with man or beast/ Children and those who die
in their beds are buried in a horizontal position. The grave is
fenced in and cared for " until the termites have eaten it, whereupon
it is forgotten, together with the human being it sheltered. "
Related to the burial in urns or jars are the graves in the mounds
of the American Indians in the upper Mississippi Valley and else-
where. These mounds, however, cannot be older than a few
centuries, because among the thousands of cultural objects which
surround the dead in their jars or stone-lined graves are some
objects obviously of white man's origin. The reason for this type
of burial is given by Keating : " The graves were placed upon
mounds in the prairies, this situation having doubtless been selected
as being the highest and least likely to be overflowed/'
The desire to protect the dead from the unfriendly influences of
the soil, water, cold, and even from decay itself, has also led to the
practice of preparing the body so that it will not be subjected to
further changes or damages. This is the idea of mummification,
the earliest forms of which are drying, or smoking of the body, as
practised among the early harvesters. On the Gilbert Islands the
mummies remain within the family circle for a long time. They
take part in the dances of the people, are carried around, and enjoy
all the attentions due to an honoured guest.
An elaborate example of mummification as described by Manker
is the treatment of the dead among the Belgian Congo Babwende,
who prepare an important man or chieftain for his funeral by
transforming him into a niombo. This is done immediately after
death. The mourners in bast hats and old, ragged cloths, their
faces painted red and black, hang the corpse on a tow under the
roof of the deceased's hut over a fire which burns day and night.
The funeral watch and the drying procedure go on for months,
until the last trace of moisture has vanished from the body.
In the meantime mountains of bast mats, cotton cloth, and
similar materials are collected from the friends and relatives of the
deceased " so that he does not have to enter the Other Land as a
poor and disregarded pauper." The professional niombo master is
now called to the hut. He arrives with the head of the niombo^ on
which he has worked since the man died. It is a work of art, sewn
from red cotton and stuffed with grass and similar materials. " The
features are lively, the cheeks softly rounded, the thick-lipped
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
mouth is open to show the filed-down teeth, the eyes are effectively
encircled in red and black. A handsome beard decorates the chin.
The black, dry corpse of the departed is now wrapped by the
niombo master with the hundreds of yards of material into a gigantic
bundle. Arms, legs, and feet
are added and skilfully sup-
ported by an inner structure.
The tattoo of the deceased is
painted on the chest of the
effigy. When it is ready the
niombo is bigger than a house. "
On the day of the burial the
whole village takes part in a
huge banquet, after which a
group of men carry the niombo
to the funeral dance, in which
he is whirled around high above
the huts. Suddenly the whirl-
ing stops. Silence befalls the
mourners, and the funeral cor-
tege leaves the village, following
the gigantic red-painted figure
wobbling on its supports. When
it is lowered into the grave in
a standing position everybody
present makes a jump in the
air lie who does not or cannot
jump will follow the niombo
NIOMBO
Funeral Kffigy, containing Man's
Body
Babwenclc, West Africa
After E. Mankcr
very soon. All help to fill the
huge grave, the top of which
is decorated with the departed's
tools and gadgets. The dead
man's house is then burned
down.
Where does he go ? To a place of bliss, as a respected, influential
man. There is no doubt that the generosity of his friends and
family, who sent him off in so prosperous a manner, will impress
his fellow- dwellers in the spirit land.
The distant country to which the soul travels after death is, in
the belief of the agricultural peoples, by no means a realm of
dread. The spirit lives on under conditions comparable to those
of his earthly existence, but unmarred by its frequent sorrows and
mishaps. The dead live in communities patterned after those they
JOURNEY'S END
377
left behind. They plant and harvest, fight and love all under
ideal conditions. Agricultural peoples know what to expect in
their next life ; speculation and painful uncertainty are alien to them.
Different indeed is the conception of death found among the
herdsmen and the Polynesian tribes, who both developed the idea
of the individual to a much greater degree than the community-
bound societies of the agriculturists. Their belief in a general
survival of the spirit of the dead is much less accentuated, and their
emphasis on classes or castes regulates their ideas of the hereafter.
While the nobles and the chieftains can look forward to a continua-
tion of the privileges they enjoyed on
earth after death, some parts of the
population are denied any spiritual
survival whatsoever.
Only the Polynesian rulers of
Tonga are immortal, while the
common men cease to exist at the
moment of death. Many African
herdsmen grant a spiritual existence
after death only to the chieftains and
the medicine - men ; the common
people and especially the women
cannot hope for a continued spiri-
tual life. In general, death means
destruction, and a survival in other
forms is the exception.
Traces of this attitude are evident even among harvesters like
the Australian Aranda and Loritja, whose souls go to a land of the
dead, but only for a short time, and are destroyed soon thereafter.
Among the pre-Islamic Arabs and among the ancient Jews the idea
of a life after death was very limited. The strong accent on the
importance of the living individual seems to create the idea that
death is an inevitable end to his activities.
The worship of the sun, the typical feature of the father-right
cultures, leads to a special emphasis on platform and scaffold graves,
so that the departed may find himself exposed to the rays of the
holy light as long as possible. For this reason, many American
Indians lay their dead to rest on scaffolds or in trees. Many
wooded sections east and west of the Mississippi Valley contain
regular cemeteries where the bodies of the departed, carefully
wrapped in mats or skins or birch bark, tower on trees and scaffolds.
Skulls of sacrificed animals, gifts of tobacco, and bows and arrows
adorn the lofty graves. Even under the influence of Christianity
SCAFFOLD BURIAL OF CHIEF
CRAZY WOLF
Crow Indians
After D.I. Bmlmell, Jr.
378 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
many an old tribe still sticks to its ancient burial methods. They
adhere to the wish of old Spotted Tail of the Sichangu to go " not
where the white people go but where the red people go."
Often the type of burial is determined by the way in which the
departed met his death. The Missisauga, for instance, buried the
dead hunter on a very high scaffold, while those killed in war were
cremated and their ashes carried to the burial grounds near the
village. The custom of the Cheyenne of burying their dead on
scaffolds in travois baskets is a fitting symbol of the way of life and
death of a roaming plains tribe.
Burial on platforms and scaffolds has deeply influenced the later
customs of the highly-cultured peoples, especially of the Parsee of
India, whose Zoroastrian conceptions led to the idea of keeping the
corpse from any contact with the soil. In their * towers of silence '
the dead are exposed to swarms of vultures that skeletonize the
bodies to spare the flesh from decay and, at the same time, to keep
the worshipped flames of the fire free from devouring the unclean
substances of the human body.
Similar was the purpose of the so-called ' corpse-devouring '
sarcophagi of Assos, which Plinius describes as " eating the bodies
of the dead within forty days." Such stone sarcophagi still stand
on the piedestales of Assos. Modern science has proved that they
were lined with aluminic lime and that they were not closed firmly
enough to prevent blow-flies and their brood from penetrating the
small clefts insects of which Linne said : " A fallen horse is
quicker devoured by the descendants of three blow-flies than by
a lion."
Disregard of the dead body as a discarded shell without further
purpose and significance led in many tribes of herdsmen and
related societies to the simple abandonment of the corpse wherever
it fell, a custom which can be found especially in East Africa.
Related to it is the Polynesian practice of leaving the dead bodies
put away in caves without taking any special care.
These same people, who have so little use for the corpses of their
departed, nevertheless often try to preserve the mortal remains of
their nobles and rulers in a very permanent fashion. The custom
of preserving these bodies, however, does not originate from the
desire to worship the dead body as a container of an immortal,
magic soul. Rather it is meant to extend the recognition enjoyed
by the individual during his lifetime, by transforming him, so to
speak, into a memorial monument of himself. This preservation
is done by mummification.
In younger complexes of the patriarchic cultures a marked
JOURNEY S END 379
preference for cremation becomes more and more evident. It also
symbolizes the idea of the finality of death. In many regions, as,
for instance, in Polynesia, only the noble and prominent ones are
entitled to such funerals, and the type of pyre varies with their rank.
India and eastern Asia have accepted this type of disposal of the
corpse as part of their religious rituals ; and the public cremations
of the dead, especially along the Ganges, belong to the sacrosanct
Hindu customs.
The -arctic peoples of America and Asia, whose culture consists
of a blend of many diverging influences, are closer to the animistic
world of the agriculturists than to the feudalistic conceptions of
the father-right peoples. To them, not only man and beast, but
also tree and cloud and stone and river, are enlivened by spiritual
forces ; and the dead body too is alive with magic forces capable
of influencing dangerously or favourably the living. Because of
their mixed cultural development, the arctic peoples have adopted
the burial methods of almost all other societies, including interment
and the weighting down of the grave with stones ; simple abandon-
ment of the corpse which is eaten by the animals of the wilderness ;
the destruction of the dead by fire, and scaffold burial. The
Gilyaks and Chukchee cremate their dead, collect the ashes, and
erect small huts over the remains, which,are worshipped by relatives.
The Mongols, on the other hand, sit by and watch the dogs tear
apart what was a human being just a few hours ago.
It may be worth while to dwell briefly on the burial customs of
a culture as highly developed as that of the Natchez, those extra-
ordinary people, now extinct, who once inhabited the lower Missis-
sippi Valley. Whether or not the dead of their lower caste, or
Stinkards, were treated in any special fashion has escaped the
attention of the ancient writers, but it is known that the funeral of
a Sun, a noble chieftain, certainly was a remarkable event. Gravier,
a Jesuit father, and Penicaut have furnished exciting descriptions
of such funerals, during which many innocent lives were sacrificed
for the glory of the departed not only cooks and skilled attendants
who had to continue their services in the next world, but also small
children sacrificed by their own parents.
In 1704 a great female Sun died, and her husband, who came
from the ranks of the Stinkards, was immediately strangled so
that he could accompany her to the Great Village of the Dead.
Both were bedded on a triumphal car in their cabin, and fourteen
scaffolds were erected in the public square, each attended by a
festively garbed man, a moriturus, who had pledged his life to
the deceased while she was still alive. Each of the fourteen men
380 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
himself wove the cord with which he was to be strangled ; each
had his face painted vermilion and was attended by five servants.
" At the end of four days," records the ancient author, " they
began the ceremony of ' the march of the bodies.' " Fathers
and mothers of twelve children under three years of age strangled
their own offspring with their bare hands in honour of the
departed, and * decorated* the noble bier with the tiny bodies.
The funeral cortege was preceded by the fathers who carried
their dead children. Finally the fourteen pledged .men were
strangled by the singing relatives of the dead chief tainess.
The custom of killing human beings for the * comfort J of the
departed is a phenomenon encountered especially in the high
cultures. It springs from the habit of picturing the hereafter
similar to earthly existence. The Chinese heaven and hell know
whole hierarchies of ' government ' officials, just as on earth.
In fact, no people is capable of imagining a Great Beyond in
which the fundamental conditions and blessings do not correspond
to the patterns deemed desirable on earth. During the ceremony
canonizing a saint the Pope appeals " to all of the heavenly court."
The concept of life after death developed especially in the
animistic ideas of the agriculturists, with the later addition of
ethical evaluations. The cjass and caste concepts of the herdsmen
are reflected in the desire to equip the noble traveller as completely
as possible for the long trip to the next land.
Fettering of the dead is as old as the phenomenon of death
itself, and there is hardly a prehistoric grave in which some pre-
caution was not used to hinder the dead from escaping and
reappearing. Often some bones were removed and others added
to * confuse ' the corpse ; its head was turned towards the ground,
or purposeful mutilations were performed, in the same way that
to-day's primitives tie the hands of a corpse to the neck, weight
the grave or fence it in with barricades, behead the body before
burial, build mock paths away from the village, or tie the deceased
into his coffin so firmly that he cannot leave his place of confinement.
The ancient Egyptians were especially careful in this respect.
Their fear of Achu, or Chu, the returning dead, inspired many
methods of precaution. When the priests described the hereafter
as a place of glory nobody could believe that its joys could possibly
measure up to the joys of Egypt, and sheer force was used to
prevent the Achu from returning. The dead were decapitated,
subjected to ruses of all kinds, vital organs like heart and brains
were removed.
From fettering the corpse with knotted strings developed the
JOURNEY'S END 381
artful wrapping of the mummified body with yards and yards
of bandages, the ends of which were closed with complicated
knots and often sealed with images to frighten the spirit and
thereby restrain the Wanderlust. The Egyptian coffin, which
closely follows the contours of the human form, was supposed
to have the effect of constricting armour ; furthermore, it was
closed with ingenious locks impossible to open from within. In
addition, many of the inscriptions in these coffins praise the
comforts of the hereafter so vividly that the
dead who might have planned an escape would
be persuaded to remain in their coffins.
The Incas of Peru mummified their rulers
and buried them in full regalia in a crouching
position. They were firmly tied into a square-
shaped bundle. Sometimes such a bundle con-
tains several bodies on which an artificial head
was mounted to give the impression that it
was only one mummy. These preserved dead
bodies were said to have magic qualities, and
were carried along for good luck in wars.
Some of the mummies of the Inca rulers,
decorated with golden masks, precious, brace-
lets, and gorgeous hair ornaments, sat on golden
chairs in a circle round the picture of the Sun
Temple in Cuzco. The Aztecs, also, mummi-
fied their most noble dead and the warriors
killed in battle and the women who died during
childbirth. These alone were reborn to spiritual life in the sun.
The dead Chibcha rulers were buried in hidden graves, fully
equipped with bags containing cocoa and jars filled with chicha,
and surrounded by the bodies of their killed wives and servants.
The many mock entrances and labyrinthine paths within the
Egyptian pyramids had the same purpose : to hide away the
magic mummies from possible intruders who might steal the bodies
and their treasures, and benefit from their mystical powers.
In Tibet we find the typical dual father-right methods of com-
plete destruction of the corpses of the common people, and
preservation of the corpses of the nobles (especially the Lamas)
by mummification. While holy bodies are kept in sacred mummy
containers which often have the shape of small temples, the
corpses of the common people are offered to the wild animals.
If birds pick at them and carry them away the soul will go to heaven ;
if pigs or dogs devour them it indicates a rebirth on earth. If
r-
V ' "
' 1
TIBETAN CHORTEN
CONTAINING ASHES
OF A LAMA
After Forstmann
382 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
the dead person is quickly devoured it means he was a good man
if he isn't, it indicates the opposite, and he must expect stress and
punishment. The trumpets and drums of the holy Lamas,
fashioned from human bones and skulls, indicate the antiquity
of animistic beliefs in the religions of higher cultures ; and the
custom of addressing the departed soul springs from the old idea
that the dead are able to listen, although they have no means of
answering.
The custom of indicating a state of mourning by outex symbols
is equally ancient. Painting the face white or black is supposed
to trick the dead into the belief that the mourners are ghosts,
and not living creatures to be envied. The restrictions to which
the survivors submit themselves are meant to appease the grief
and jealousy of those who can no longer be with them.
As to the general attitude of modern men toward the phenom-
enon of death it often strikes us just as unpreparedly as it does
the victim of witchcraft who dies in the jungle. Whether we
are happy or unhappy in the knowledge that " this, too, shall
pass " is' determined by the degree of soul substance which we
may or may not possess. Whatever we believe, so much is sure :
that, in the words of an ancient Tibetan book, " Nothing but
emptiness comes from an jmpty room," and that only those who
believe are happy. The form of our beliefs is not of such para-
mount importance, as long as they are carried out with integrity
and conviction. Whether we picture the Great Beyond as a form
of individual immortality or as a dissolution into a greater
spiritual entity, whether we expect to fly on the wings of birds
to the sun or hope to be care-free and innocent like the reed
our passing will be a peaceful one if our lives have been directed
by the one impenetrable Source who alone knows the significance
of stress and bliss, of life and death, and the origin of all things.
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CHAPTER ONE
Of Home and Hearth and Pots and Pans
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CHAPTER TWO
Accessories of Allure
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CHAPTER THREE
The First Robot
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CHAPTER SEVEN
On the Roads of Land and Water
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CHAPTER EIGHT
Wall Street in the Jungle
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4O2 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
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CHAPTER NINE
From Tom-tom to Newspaper
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CHAPTER TEN
Education without Books
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Show begins
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406 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
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CHAPTER TWELVE
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Magic and the Powers of the Unknown
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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Each Thing has its Story
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BIBLIOGRAPHY 413
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Journey's End
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414 THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
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Index
ACORNS, as food, 99, 152153; storage
houses for, 26
"Acorns, Origin of," 353~354
Adulterers, 292, 296
Aggri pearls, 202
Agricultural society, laws and govern-
ment of, 303-308
Agriculture, development of, 94-106
Air-conditioning, primitive, 114
Akori y 71
Alcoholic drinks, 151, 163-166
Alliances, inter-tribal, 305
Alphabet, development of, 233236
Ancestors, belief in, 366-367
Animal breeding, 106-110
Animal fables, 345
Animal skins, use of, 138-140, 191
Animal traps, 76-87
Animals, corpses destroyed by, 378,
381; human feelings attributed to,
332, 333 ; myths about, 345 ; souls of,
326, 327, 338; use of tools by, 108,
112
Animism, 326, 332-334, 3 8 > 3 8 2
Ants, torturing with, 253
Arctic tribes, laws and government,
2977299
Arm rings, as money, 200
Art, primitive, 83-84, 86
Asylum, right of, 296, 297
Auto-suggestion, 114
BABIES, method of carrying, 179
Babylon, excavations of, 46
Ball games, 168, 171-172
Banana, 154
Banana-tree, 102
Bark, primitive use of, n6, 117-119,
190191, 192
Basket weaving, 124-130
Bathing, 50-51
Beads, 70, 71, 202-203
Beards, 60-6 1
Beasts of burden, 107, 179, 185
"Beaver, Origin of/' 358-359
Beds, 37-39
'Beehive,' 21, 22
Beer, 164-165
Bellows, 143
Betel nut, 156-157
Beverages, 155-156, 163-166
Bible, references to iron in, 144, 145
Birch-bark canoes, 118
Bird nets, 75, 76
Birds, games played with, 169
' Black drink,' 158
"Black People, Origin of," 360
Blacksmiths, and currency, 211; primi-
tive, 143-144, 146
Bone tools, 120
Books, evolution, 236-238
Boomerang, 117, 171
Bosjes, 21
Boundaries, laws relating to, 288-290,
292, 294, 298
Boxing, 171
Boys, initiation of, 246-254
Bracelets, 71, 123
Brag flute, 223
Braiding, art of, 124-130
Brandy, 165
Brassiere, 72
Bride, payment for, 207
Bridges, early types, 177-178
Bronze Age, 140, 141
Burial, methods of, 326, 329, 364-366,
372-382
CACAO, 156
Caesarean operation, 114
Camels, breeding of, 107
Canals, 176177
Canoes, 188194
Caps, 65, 66
Carrying beam, 180, 181
Carrying straps, 179
Cassava shrub, 153
"Cat, Origin of," 360
Catapults, 83, 187
Cattle breeding, development of, 106
no
Cattle-breeding peoples, culture of, 107
Caves, as dwellings, 19-20; paintings
in, 83-84,
Celebrations, 172-173
Ceramics see Pottery
Chairs, 40
Chariot, 187
Chemical lighters, 36
Chickens, domestication of, 106
Chieftainship, 292, 296, 299, 307
Child Eater, 242
Children, games of, 167; punishment
of, 242 ; training of, 239, 242-246
Chinese currency, 209
Chinese palace, 46
416
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
Chocolate, origin of, 156
Cigars, 16 1
Cire-perdue process, 142
City, origin of, 32
Clay, eating of, 154; houses made of,
28; pottery, I33~i3 8
Cliff dwellings, 30
Climate, importance of, 89
Climbing, 170
Cloth made of bark, 118
Clothing, 72-73
Clowns, 268-269, 273-277
Club, stone, 123; wooden, 117
Coca, chewing of, 157
Cocaine, 114, 157
Coffee, origin of, 155
Coiffures, 6163
Coins, 195-210; 'edible,' 205-206
'Colleges,' female, 256-257
Colour symbolism, 53-55
Colours, cosmetic, 52-59
Combs, 64
Comeliness, primitive standards of,
49-50
Commercial law, 294
Communication, methods of, 216238
Community houses, 27, 29-30, 32, 44
Containers, types of, 41-42
Cooking, 151-154
'Coolie' yoke, 180
Copper money, 209 *
Copyright, 279-280, 294, 297
Corpse, abandonment of, 378, 379
Corroboree, 267, 294
Cosmetics, 51-59, 73
Cotton money, 212
Cowrie-shell money, 70, 168, 196
Creation, myths about, 341, 342, 343-
345
Cremation, 364, 379
Crime, children considered incapable
of, 244; punishment of, 290-292,
296-297, 300, 301, 304-306
Cross-bow, origin of, 81
Currency, myths relating to, 213
DANCES, 168, 262, 266-267, 272-280
passim, 334, 373
Dark Ages, 112
"Day and Night, Origin of," 350
Dead, attitude towards, 325, 330; fear
of, 364-365, 380
Death, attitude towards, 362-382
"Death, Origin of," 352~353
Deflation of primitive money, 214
Diba, 65
Digging stick, 92, 102, 108, 116
'Diplomats' sticks,' 227
Distillation, invention of, 165
Diivarra money, 197-199
Dog, domestication of, 106
Dog teams, for pulling sledges, 185
Dog-tooth money, 203
Dolls, 167; and magic, 319
Domestication of animals, 106-110
Doors, primitive, 31, 46
Drilling, to produce fire, 35
Drinks, 155156, 163166
Drugs, 157-159
Drums 282 ; as signalling instruments,
220-223
Dug-out, 188-190
Dwellings, primitive, 19-33
Dyeing of skins, 139-140
EARS, piercing of, 69
Earth, eating of, 154
Eclipse, beliefs about, 340
Education, 239-261
Effigy magic, 3 1 8-3 1 9
Elephant hunting, 92
FEASTS, 172-173
Feather money, 204
Fei t 20 1 -202
Felting, art of, 140
Fertility plays, 265, 266, 270-272, 316
Fertilizing, in hoe culture, 105, 106, 109
Fetish figures, 331
Fettering of the dead, 380
Fibre money, 212
Field, choosing spot for, 104-105
' Filling stations ' for fire-lighting, 37
Finger-nails, filing of, 69
' Finishing schools,' 256-257
Fire, and magic, 314315; beliefs and
myths relating to, 33-34; 'filling
stations,' 37; 'lighters,' 36; methods
of kindling, 34-36; signals, 225
"Fire, Origin of," 351
Fire-plough, 36
Fire -pump, 36
Fire -saw, 35
Fish, as food, 152
Flood, story of, 342-346
Flowers, in hoe culture, 106
Flutes, 284
Food, and magic, 313; storage of, by
harvesting tribes, 100; types of,
^ 151-155
Food-gathering groups, 91-106
Food-gathering tribes, laws of, 290-298
Foot-gear, primitive, 72, 182
Frigate bird, games played with, 169
Fulbe conquest, 308
Funerals, games played at, 168-169
Fur blankets, 130
Furniture, primitive, 40-48
INDEX
417
Gait ezen, 34
Gallows, 80
Game nets, 75, 76
Games, 167-170
Geophagy, I54~i55
Girls, tribal initiation of, 254-257
Glacial Age, 84, 86-87, 91
Goattas y 25
Gods, 327, 328, 334, 336
Gold money, 210211
Gongs as money, 209
Government, 292, 293, 296, 297-298,
300, 301, 303, 305, 309-310
Graves, platform and scaffold, 377
Gravity trap, 78-79, 87
Grease paints, 52
"Great Flood, Story of," 342-346
" Great-houses," 29
Greeting customs, 243-244
HAIR, bleaching, 63; for braiding
material, 129; removing, 59, 60, 139
Hair-brushes, 64
Hair-dyeing, 63
Hair-rinsing, 63
Hair-styles, 61-63
Hammocks, 39, 114, 181
Harvesting tribes, economy of, 97-102,
1 08; laws and government of, 293-
297; property rights of, 293-295
Hashish, 157
Hats, 65, 66
Head-band, 179
Head-rest, 38, 46
Head trophies, 368-369
Hemp, smoking of, 157
Herdsmen, conception of death, 377;
invasion by, 308; laws and govern-
ment of, 306-308
'Hide money,' 212
Hieroglyphs, Egyptian, 233
High jumping, 170
Hockey, 171
Hoe culture, 101-106
Homes, aesthetic qualities of, 32-33,
45-48; comforts of, 37-48; types of,
19-33 .
Hook-swinging, 252
Horns, musical, 284
Horseback riding, 186
Horses, as beasts of burden, 107, 185;
breeding of, 106, 107
Household implements, 41-43, 117, 122,
127-129
Houses see Homes
Hunting tools, 75-87
Hunting tribes, economy of, 84, 89-97;
laws of, 295, 297-300
Hut, round, 21
ICE AGE, 84, 86-87, 91
Ice skates, 182
Igloo, 22-23
Illnesses, magic, 316
Incision, practice of, 58, 252, 256
Inheritance, 296, 307
Initiation rites, 246-257
Inventions, development of, 111-149
Iron Age, 140-147
Irrigation, 109
JAR, as money, 201
Jumping, 170
KAYAK, 191
Khipus, 228-229
" Killer Whale, Origin of/' 358
Kissing, 244
Klolek, 249-251
Knives, stone, 122
Kuka game, 168
Kumyss brandy, 165
LABOUR, division of, 91, 147
Labrets, 69
Lacrosse, 172
Lake dwellers, houses of, 29
Lamps, 41
Land see Property
Language and communication, 216, 218
Lapp$, tents of, 25
Latch-keys, primitive, 31
Law, systems of, 287-3 1 1
Leather, making of, 139
Liana bridges, 178
Light signals, 225
Lightning, regarded as animate, 339
Lips, wooden disks in, 69
Lipsticks?- 56
Litters, for travelling, 181
Loom, development of, 131-133
Love-' letter' of carved sticks, 228
Love-magic, 324
MAGIC HUNTING RITES, 84, 313
Magic powers of ancestors, 366-367
Magic, practice of, 312-324
Magician, evil, as cause of death, 371
Maidu baskets, 127
Mankala game, 168
Maori, tattooing, 58-59
'Maria Theresa taler/ 208
Marijuana, 159
Maruzva beer, 164
Masks, carved, 369-370; cult of, 332;
sacred, 250, 252; theatre, 269-279
passim
Matches, origin of, 36
Meat-preserving, 152
418
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
Medicine-men, 114, 317, 321
Menstruation, attitude towards, 254
Menu of primitive kitchen, 151-154
Message sticks, 218, 227
Metal money, 207-2 1 1
Metal tools, 140-141, 145
Mimos, 265, 268, 277
Money, 195-215
Monochord, 283
Monoxylas, 188
"Moon, Origin of," 347~35O
Moon, regarded as animate, 334, 339
Moral code, 335, 336
Mosquito-nets, 39
Mounds, Indian, 375
Mourning, indications of, 218, 372, 375,
382
Mummification, 364, 375, 381
Music, primitive, 280-286
Musical instruments, 281-284
Myths, primitive, 336-362
NAKEDNESS, attitude towards, 168, 243
Name-magic, 316, 320
Names, houses called by, 30
Nassi wine, 164
Navigation, primitive, 194
Neanderthal man, 89
Necklaces, 70-71, 73
Nets for trapping, 75, 76
'Neutral territories/ 294
News communication, 216218
News criers, 217, 218-219
Newspapers, development of, 238
Nobles, 309, 310
Nonda, 158
Nose, piercing of, 68
OCTLI, 164
Opium, 157, 206
Ornaments, 69-73, 122
Oson, 243
Outrigger canoes, i93 -I 94
PAINT PATTERNS, as bodily adornment,
57-5.8
Palaeolithic Age, economy of, 89, 91
Palm wine, 163
Paper, invention of, 119, 238
' Paper money,' 211-212
Papyrus, 119, 236, 237
Parchment, 233-237
Pelota, igi
Perfumes, 72
Personal magic, 3i7~324
Photographs, aversion to, 320
Picture writing, 231-232
' Pig-money,' 200
Pigs, domestication of, 106
Pile houses, 28-29
Pillows, earliest, 38
Pipes, tobacco, 160, 162
Pituri leaves, 158
Plantain, 154
Plays, primitive, 262-286
Plough, invention of, 108-109
Pole bridge, 178
Porcelain, invention of, 137
Porte-chaise, 181
Portraits, aversion to, 320
Pottery, art of, 133-138; primitive, 41
"Pottery, Origin of," 256-357
Prayers, 334~335
Preventive magic, 319-320
Private property, 295-296, 297, 307, 311
Producer, in theatre, 277
Property marks, 226227, 298
Property rights, 291, 293, 295, 297-300,
303, 3<H 30?-3 8 > 3IO-3U
Pulque, 164, 1 66
Punishment of children, 242
Pygmies, baskets of, 125; elephant
hunts of, 92; inability to develop
agriculture, 95
Pyramids, Egyptian, 33
QUADRANGULAR HOUSE, 21-22, 23
RAFTS, 190-191
Rain, and magic, 314, 315
Reindeer, as beast of burden, 185
Religious plays, 265, 268-275
Rice, wild, 99-100
Ricksha, 187
River roads, 176
Roads, importance of, 174-1 75
Rock houses, 30
Rubber, as money, 206
Rubber ball, 1 14
Running, 170
SAGO, 154
Salmon, 152
Salopo gaxo wine, 164
Salt, 155, 205
' Salt streets,' of Europe, 175
Sandals, 182
'Scalp-cries,' 219
Scar tattoo, 58, 59
Script, invention of, 233, 235
Seal hunt, Eskimo written account of,23 1
Secret societies, 257-258, 304-305
Sedan chair, 188
Shampoos, 63-64
Shaving, 60
Sheep breeding, 106, 107
Shell money, 196-201
INDEX
419
" Shell Money, Origin of," 354-356
Shells, as personal adornments, 70-71
Shield, 117
Shows, primitive, 262-286
Sign language, 224
Signal horns, 220
Signs, primitive, 224-226
Silk, development of, 133
' Silk roads/ 175
Skin boats, 191
Skins, 138-140, 191
Skis, 182
* Skull money/ 205
Skull worship, 331, 367-368
Skulls, nailing of, 364
Slavery, 300
Sledge, 184-185
Slit drum, 220, 222
Slot-machine, invention of, 87
Smelting, 143-145
Smoke signals, 225
Smoking, 159-162
Snail-shells, as money, 196, 197
Snare traps, 79
Snow-shoes, 183-184
"Snow-shoes, Origin of," 357
Soil, importance of, 89
"Song Dausi, Origin of," 361-362
Songs, copyrighting, 279-280
Soul, beliefs about, 325-334, 362-382,
passim
Soul-stones, 331
Soul-wood, 331
Spear money, 207208
Spears, duelling with, 171; wooden, 116
Specialization, effect of, 148
Spindle, invention of, 130-131
Spirits, belief in, 325-332, 336-342
Sports, 170172
Springing-pole trap, 80 8 1
Stages, for theatre, 278
State, laws and government of, 308-311
Stimulants, 156-164; as currency, 206
Stinkards, 309, 310, 379
Stone implements, 120-122
Stone money, 201-202
Stools, 40
Storage houses, 26, 32
Story-tellers, 345-346
String games, 168
Subterranean houses, 30
Sun, and magic, 314-315; and souls of
dead, 327; regarded as animate, 329,
334, 339 340~343
Sun-dance festivities, 272, 274
"Sun, Origin of," 346-347
Surf-riding, 171
Swimming, 171
Syphilis, native remedy for, 114
TABOO, LAW OF, 296
Tambu money, 197-199
Tapa, 119, 204
Taro, 153
Tattooing, 58-59
Taxes, 214
Tea, origin of, 155
Teepee, 23-24
Teeth, customs relating to, 66-68 ; dye-
ing, 66 ; mutilation of, 67, 68
Telephones, Eskimo, 114; native, 114
Tents, modern use of, 26; principal
types of, 23-26
Territory, unit of, 288, 298, 302
Thatched house, 29
Theatre, primitive, 264-286
Throwing, 170
TiboSj 104105
Tipiti tube press, 128
Tobacco, 159-162; as money, 151,
206
Toboggan, 184
Token figures, 373
'Token' money, 212
Tokens, magic, 323, 324
Tom-tom, 221
Tools, as money, 206; metal, 140141,
145 ; ' revolt ' of, 47-48 ; skill of primi-
tives in use of, 32, 33, 41-48, 89, 92
Tooth coins, 203204
Torsion trap, 81-82
Tortflre, in initiation rites, 252254,
260
Totem-poles, 40
Tow bridge, 178
Toys, 167-168
Trades, development of, 147-149
Trails, primitive, 174-175, 176
Transportation, methods of, 175-194
Trapping, methods of, 76-87; signals
of, 225
Traps, importance to modern techno-
logical development, 83-87; pre-
historic, 76-77
Travois, 186
Tree houses, 31
Trepanation, 114
Trespass, 288-290
Trials, 304, 306-307
Troglodytism, 20
Trousers, origin of, 72
Trunks, riding on, 188
Tukul, 29
Tump-line, 179
Twine, 129
UMIAK, 191
Umpires, 171
Urns, burial in, 374
420
THE ORIGIN OF THINGS
VEDDAS, as cave dwellers, 20; wind-
breaks of, 20
Villages, 302-303, 305
Violin, origin of, 81
WAINWRIGHT INLET, 23
Walking, 170
Wampum belts, 231
Water-containers, 41, 127, 136
Waterways, 175, 176; travel on, 188-194
Weapons as money, 206
Weaving, 124-134
Wheel, invention of, 109, 186
Wheel trap, 79, 86
Wheelbarrow, 187
Wicki-ups, 21
Wigwam, 24
Wild rice, 99-100
Windbreaks, 20-21
Wines, 163-164
* Winter-counts, 5 231
Witchcraft see Magic
Women, and cosmetics, 51-59, 73;
duties of, 147; in agriculture, 91,
103; political rights of, 303
Wood, Age of, 115; primitive use of,
115-120
Word -magic, 316, 321-322
Wrestling, 171 *
Writing, development of, 233236
Yourtas, 25
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